| Rock City | |
|---|---|
 Rock City, 2006 | |
 Map showing location of Rock City | |
| Location | Minneapolis, Kansas, Ottawa, Kansas, Kansas, United States |
| Coordinates | 39°5′27.20″N 97°44′7.99″W / 39.0908889°N 97.7355528°W |
| Elevation | 1,276 ft (389 m)[1] |
| Website | Web Site |
| Designated | 1976 |
Rock City is a park located on hillsides overlooking the Solomon River in Ottawa County, Kansas. It is 3.6 miles south of Minneapolis, Kansas and just over 0.5 mile west of Kansas highway K-106 and the Minneapolis City County Airport on Ivy Road. In a patch of prairie about 500 meters (1,600 feet) long and 40 meters (130 feet) wide, Rock City contains three clusters of large spherical boulders. These three clusters contain a total of 200 spherical boulders. It has been designated as a National Natural Landmark.
The park, owned by a non-profit corporation, has a visitor center and picnic tables. A small admission fee, which is used to maintain this park, is charged.
The remarkable size and spherical shape of these rock formation was first noted by Bell.[2] Later, these boulders were either noted or described by Gould,[3] Landes,[4] Shaffer,[5] Ward,[6] and Swineford.[7] Shaffer[5] was the first person to map the distribution of these boulders at Rock City and investigate their petrography in detail.[8]
- ^ "Rock City". Geographic Names Information System. United States Geological Survey, United States Department of the Interior.
- ^ Bell, W.T., 1901, The remarkable concretions of Ottawa County, Kansas, American Journal of Science, 4th Series, v. 11, p. 315-316.
- ^ Gould, C.N., 1901, The Dakota Cretaceous of Kansas and Nebraska, Kansas Academy of Science, v. 17, p. 122-178.
- ^ Landes, K.K., 1935, Scenic Kansas, Geological Survey of Kansas Bulletin, n. 36, 55 p.
- ^ a b Shaffer, H.L., 1937, Concretions in the Dakota Sandstone, Compass, v. 17, p. 87-90.
- ^ Ward, H.K., 1938, Concretions of Rock City. Mineralogist, v. 6, p. 23-24.
- ^ Swineford, Ada (1947). Cemented sandstones of the Dakota and Kiowa formations in Kansas. Geological Survey of Kansas Bulletin. OCLC 5051056.
- ^ McBride, Earle F; Milliken, Kitty L (2006). "Giant calcite-cemented concretions, Dakota Formation, central Kansas, USA". Sedimentology. 53 (5): 1161–79. doi:10.1111/j.1365-3091.2006.00813.x.