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This is an excerpt from "Fault Lines
in Artifacts".
Read the complete column in the Central
States Archaeological Societies 2022
July Journal which can be purchased on-line after March
2023
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In 1985, after 21 years of looking for artifacts, I was on the verge
of understanding what I had viewed in a few artifacts which did not
make sense. With help from my Kansas State geology professor, Page
C. Twiss, I showed him a scraper (Fig. 1) that I had found the evening
before when I took a break from studying for an hour to enjoy the beautiful
winter evening. I had ventured out to check a site just outside of
my home town of Marysville, Kansas. The scraper I found had slightly
offset bands which surprised him, so he took it to a colleague who
was able to identify what was going on. His conclusion was that the
bands showed a shifting of the earth’s crust (fault line) that
had fused back together. I guess you could call it the original super
glue. Both informed me the scraper was made from Permian Flint Hills
chert.
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Figure 2. A view of the fault that is on
the east edge of the emergency spillway outside of Manhattan,
Kansas. The emergency outflow gates are at the right.
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This explains what I had been seeing over the years in a few artifacts
that had a crack line in them but did not have bands to show movement.
The only explanation that came to mind when I found them was that
they had been hit by a disc blade that cracked them but did not snap
the piece. Obviously, now that assumption was incorrect, as it was
the force of nature at work.
Major Faults (Macro)
When I was about 12 years old, my Uncle Hiram had told me about
the Nemaha fault, which is visible in the emergency spillway of
Tuttle Creek dam (Fig. 2). The Nemaha fault runs diagonally in
a northeasterly direction through Kansas across Riley County and
then into Pottawatomie and Nemaha counties. Due to sluffing, including
shell, clay and rock debris, it is harder to see now. But there
are locations in this area with visible fault lines due to the
exposure of the limestone formation in road-cuts, spillways, etc.
This shifting of the earth’s crust shows up as a clean, hard,
angular break with the bedrock being vertically offset. Within
some of sedimentar limestone formations are flint/chert-bearing
beds.
Minor Fault (Micro)
The micro fault lines (mfl) occurring within these flint beds, as
evidenced by the scraper (Fig. 1), were a surprise. When I started
this article about mfl I thought it would be straightforward. However,
once I started looking at artifacts outside of my area, it became
clear it was not going to be that way. For the purpose of this
article, it was necessary to group mfls into six categories -
Solid Snap, Semi-Solid, Stiff Gel, Plastic and Void.
Solid Snap Fault
This type of break occurs when the stone is in a complete hardened
state. It appears as a clear distinct sharp visible angular straight
break on both sides of the piece, with no visible space between
the surfaces being fused back together by nature (Figs. 3, 4,
5). Based on the few pieces I have found and viewed over the years,
mfl appear to be rare in this part of the Flint Hills near where
I live. This is especially true when compared to the larger number
of artifacts I have viewed in collections. Artifacts with a clear,
solid fault line and offset bands show the angular ....
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This is an excerpt from "Fault
Lines in Artifacts".
Read the complete column in the Central
States Archaeological Societies 2022
July Journal which can be purchased on-line after March
2023
|
 |
Figure 3. This rock shows a large movement.
The band is offset 7mm, which is the most movement I have seen
in a flint piece that is
a non-artifact. Dimensions: 2 ?” L x 1” W. Found
by the author. Note: The fault line is also visible on the lime
cortex but is hard
to see in the photo.
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Read the complete column in the Central States Archaeological Societies 2022
July Journal which can be purchased on-line after March 2023 |
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