The Western Interior Seaway of the Mesozoic Era is the reason that the Red River Valley of the South is extremely rich in fossils.
The artwork above is a portion of a larger exhibit at Chaco Culture National Historical Park by Ron Blakely that depicts the Western Interior Seaway, which claimed large parts of the current North American continent millions of years ago during the Cretaceous period.
The brown portion are the land masses back then, and the white portion was the inland sea. The artist overlaid current political boundaries. Although the artwork is meant to give visitors to Chaco Canyon a sense of prehistoric geology, he inadvertently is helping us in the Red River Valley of the South, too:
The Sulphur River that runs in North Texas and empties into the Red River in southwestern Arkansas is one of the most fossil-rich places in the world. This painting shows why: a shallow portion of the sea is now the dug channel of the river, which was most likely a very rich feeding ground.
The ridge line that divides Arkansas (and which Interstate 30 follows) is very distinctive. And, the bend of the Red River in southwestern Arkansas mimics the ancient shoreline.
The area that is known as the Cross Timbers and Grand Prairie in Texas was apparently, at one point, a peninsula.
The Trinity River, which originates in North Texas, is not part of the Red River watershed. However, much of the peninsula's shoreline is traced by the current Trinity River -- which explains the plethora of fossils that have been found while the river was dammed into Lake Ray Hubbard.
I had to wade through several comments on my Red River Historian FB page that indicated many people do not remember their Earth Science classes from Middle School. I was, frankly, astonished at some VERY uninformed push-back. I won't call out any particulars, but here's a short geography/geology lesson:
The Western Interior Seaway was a shallow sea that formed as an eastern continental shelf was subducting beneath a western, denser shelf. The Seaway was, in essence, a trench. The subduction zone lifted the western tectonic plate, which gave rise (literally) to the Rocky Mountains.
The Great Plains have a higher elevation due to this subduction zone, which gradually ceased as the plate was absorbed. This is why the Plains are a higher elevation than the current Red River Valley.
Along the subduction zone were volcanoes that formed from the pressures caused by the plate movement. These inactive volcanoes can still be seen in places like Capulin in eastern New Mexico.
If you think this had to do with climatology, you're in the wrong chapter of your sixth-grade Earth Science book. Climate science observes patterns in the atmosphere that change due to many factors, ranging from volcanic activity to wind prevalence to heat domes and yes, pollutants released into the atmosphere. The purpose is to theorize what could happen to food production as the patterns change. It is science, not demagoguery, so it changes as new discoveries are made and new theories postulated. THAT'S NORMAL LEARNING.
If you don't understand what NORMAL LEARNING is, it's best not to insert yourself into scientific conversations. Imagine having the maturity to understand that it's OKAY not to pretend to know everything.
None of this has to do with some biblical flood, which is a cultural story, not science.
