Flint Hills

Explorer Zebulon Pike first coined the name the Flint Hills in 1806 when he entered into his journal, "passed very ruff flint hills". The underlying bedrock of the hills is a flinty limestone. The largest town in the area is Manhattan, Kansas, and the hills can be accessed from the Flint Hills Scenic Byway, which passes through the region. ==Geology==

The rocks exposed in the Flint Hills were laid down about 250 million years ago during the Permian Period. During this time, much of the Midwest, including Kansas and Oklahoma, was covered with shallow seas. As a result, much of the Flint Hills is composed of limestone and shale, with plentiful fossils of prehistoric sea creatures. The most notable layer of chert-bearing limestone is the Florence Limestone Member, which is approximately . Numerous roadcuts of the Florence Member are prominent along Interstate 70 in Riley County, Kansas. Unlike the Pennsylvanian limestones to the east, however, many of the limestones in the Flint Hills contain several bands of chert or flint. Because chert is much less soluble than the limestone surrounding it, the weathering of the limestone has left behind a clay soil with abundant chert gravel. Most of the hilltops in the region are capped with this chert gravel. The highest point in the Flint Hills is Butler County High Point, with an elevation of 1680 ft (512 m). ==Environment ==

Due to shallow outcroppings of limestone and chert that lay just underneath the soil surface, corn and wheat farming were not practical over much of the area since plowing the land wasn't feasible. For this reason, cattle ranching became the main agricultural activity in the region. Never having been ploughed over and sparsely developed, the Flint Hills represent the last expanse of intact tallgrass prairie in the nation. They present the best opportunity for sustained preservation of this unique habitat that once covered the vast Great Plains. Most of the plains, such as the Central tall grasslands to the north, have better soil than the Flint Hills and a richer plant cover, but have almost entirely been converted to farmland. Four tallgrass prairie preserves are located in the Flint Hills. The largest of these, the Tallgrass Prairie Preserve, in the Osage Hills near Pawhuska, Oklahoma boasts a large population of bison and is an important refuge for other wildlife such as the greater prairie chicken (Tympanuchus cupido). The other preserves in Kansas, are the Tallgrass Prairie National Preserve in northern Chase County near Strong City, the Flint Hills Tallgrass Prairie Preserve east of Cassoday, "the Prairie Chicken Capital of the World", and the Konza Prairie, which is managed as a tallgrass prairie biological research station by Kansas State University and is located near Manhattan. == In popular culture ==

• William Least Heat-Moon wrote a tribute to the Flint Hills and the Kansans who live there in his book PrairyErth. • In mathematics, the Flint Hills series (which is named after the region) is an infinite series for which it is unknown whether or not the series converges. The convergence of the Flint Hills series is related to how irrational the number is. ==See also==