PIPESTONE Midcontinent Rift System

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PIPESTONE Midcontinent Rift System

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2 PHOTOS


http://www.winona.edu/geology/MRW/mrwimages/lakeduluth.jpg



http://www.winona.edu/Geology/MRW/mrwimages/mid-continentrift.jpg

[EXCERPT]


http://www.winona.edu/geology/MRW/text/text96-121.html

A large boulder of dark-colored greenstone sitting on the floodplain of the Chippewa River near Montevideo was long recognized as out of place in an area of pink granite-gneiss bedrock. Residents referred to it as the Montevideo Meteorite. Other boulders of out-of-place rocks in Minnesota were given special attention and honor by native Americans, such as the Three Maidens in Pipestone National Monument (a granite in an area of Sioux Quartzite bedrock) and the Red Rock in the village of Red Rock (a granite from the St. Cloud in an area of sedimentary bedrock). We now know, of course, that these boulders were carried south from their sources in northern Minnesota and Canada by glaciers and were stranded at the surface when the glaciers retreated. Such out-of-place boulders are called erratics and are an important piece of evidence showing that Minnesota was at one time glaciated.


[EXCERPT]

http://www.eaglespiritministry.com/SilverEagleGathering/2bears/rp.htm

Contrary to common belief, the Sioux warrior holding the red Catlinite pipe in George Catlin's paintings did not always live in the Great Plains. History records the Sioux as originally being woodland Indians of the lower Mississippi and Ohio Valleys. Disruptions around the 1600's moved them north into lower Minnesota where they discovered the quarries of red pipestone, later called Catlinite, after the artist George Catlin.

The red clay was immediately proclaimed sacred by the Sioux and from then on, it was used exclusively in making the sacred pipe. Furthermore, the quarries were open to pipe makers of all nations without quarrel.

A legend surfaced to account for this special pipestone being the color red. A troublesome Lakota spirit named Untehi became angry and caused a great flood. It overran all the people carrying them in its wake and dumping them into the great pipestone quarries. The swirling waters crushed the people until their blood turned the water, and the pipestone red.