1

Dunes, Boxcars, and Ball Jars:Mining the Great Lakes Shores

Something is missing at Indiana Dunes National Lakeshore. Take a trip back in time to see what once was and estimate what was lost.

Tiffany M. Roberts Department of Geology, University of South Florida, Tampa, FL 33620© 2010 University of South Florida Libraries. All rights reserved.

SSACgnp.TN950.TMR1.1

Core Quantitative Literacy TopicsEstimation

Supporting Quantitative Literacy TopicsVolumeConversionsScientific notationGeometry

Core Geoscience SubjectCoastal DunesMiningAugust 5th, 1929

This material is based upon work supported by the National Science Foundation under Grant Number NSF DUE-0836566.

Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation.

2

Getting started

And you should knowwhere Indiana DunesNational Lakeshore is.

After completing this module, you should be able to:

• Distinguish between a precise answer and an estimate.• Know how to convert units.• Explain the classification of dunes. • Know the “parts” of a dune, and how to identify the predominant wind direction.• Identify various uses of silica.• Know how to calculate volume, mass, and density.

Indiana

The setting – Indiana Dunes National Lakeshore

Lake Michigan formed around 11,000 years ago at the end of the last Ice Age, when the continental ice sheet (nearly one-mile thick) retreated. Since then, lake levels have been dropping, resulting in successive shorelines, with beaches, sand dunes, and inter-dune wetlands. The glacier itself left poorly sorted sediment in the form of glacial moraines. In places along the shoreline, the moraine has been exposed by erosion from waves and currents (image A).

Today, multiple major dune complexes can be identified. The dunes closest to the shoreline are the youngest, associated with the current lake level. Inland are three earlier generations (Tolleson [B], Calumet, and Glenwood). In succession from more recent to oldest , they occur at progressively higher levels and are more vegetated. Beaches, grass-covered dune ridges, interdune swales, dunes with woody shrub vegetation, pine- and oak-forested dunes, oak savannas, and prairies with a total of more than 1,100 flowering plant species (e.g., image C)—all can be found at the Indiana Dunes National Lakeshore. It is a welcome island within a sea of urban and industrial buildup (D).

Visit the Indiana Dunes National Lakeshore Web site to learn more about the geologic processes that shaped the Great Lakes and the National Lakeshore. Be sure to visit the geology field notes.

A B C3

D

4

“To protect and preserve”

Beginning in the late 1880’s, the need to establish a park along Lake Michigan’s southern shores became an issue because sand-mining companies were removing large quantities of dune sands to use in Chicago landfills, building projects, and manufacturing. After years of battle between public and industrial interests, Indiana Dunes State Park was established in 1926. Forty years later, Indiana Dunes National Lakeshore was established as a national park unit of 8,330 acres of land and water adjoining the state park. With continued expansion, the national lakeshore now covers 15,000 acres. Both the state and national parks serve to protect the dunes and lakeshore’s other natural resources.

Above left is an oblique aerial photo of the Indiana Dunes Lakeshore in 1926, showing several successions of dunes. Above right is what remains after the dune sands were mined.

5

“Extra-extra, read-all-about-it”

Valparaiso Porter County Vidette, Thursday, 7 June, 1883

Six of the college boys went over to Michigan City Saturday. They now tell what a sight the state's prison is, and what fun it is to climb those sand-hills.

"Once Indiana's most famous landmark, Hoosier Slide was a huge sand dune bordering the west side of Trail Creek where it entered Lake Michigan. At one time it was nearly 200 feet tall, mantled with trees. Cow paths marked its slopes and people picnicked upon its crest. With the development of Michigan City, the timber was cut for building construction and the sand began to blow, sometimes blanketing the main business district of the town on Front Street, which nestled near its base.

Climbing Hoosier Slide was very popular in the late 1800's with the excursionist crowds who arrived in town by boat and train from Chicago and other cities. The summit, where weddings were sometimes held, afforded an excellent view of the vast lumberyards which then covered the Washington Park area. When it was discovered that the clean sands of Hoosier Slide were useful for glassmaking, the huge

dune began to be mined away. " - Courtesy of Portable LaPorte County , Copyright 1978 Michigan City Public Library-

For more newspaper clippings from the late 1800’s and early 1900’s, see the endnotes on Slide 18.

Lafayette Morning Journal, Monday, 18 May, 1891 "HOOSIER SLIDE."

AN INDIANA LANDMARK GOING TO CHICAGO.An Interesting Letter from the Lake--The Fate of "Hoosier Slide"-- . . .

[Special Correspondence.]

MICHIGAN CITY, Ind., May 16.--Your readers may be surprised to learn that "Hoosier Slide" is disappearing, but such is the fact. It stood for ages, perhaps, looking out over the blue waters of Lake Michigan and though fashioned out of "shifting sand,“ little change was noted in its lofty appearance. The east line of its summit was the highest point and a scrubby tree used to stand up there. Such might have been the case to-day had not a CHICAGO man come along and purchased that pile of sand. Chicago men never do something for nothing. This genius bought the "slide" at wholesale and immediately began to sell it at retail. The sale continues and this accounts for the disappearance of the famous mound. A force of men are at work six days in the week shoveling the sand on to flat cars for railway uses, and as they burrow into it at the foot, it rolls down from the top. It is a mountain of sand yet and will be for years to come--even should the shoveling process go on. But even now the east line is no longer the highest point. The scrub tree is gone, the shape of the whole top has changed and what is now the chief outlook was a year ago a secondary point.

6

The problem

Hoosier Slide, once the largest sand dune on Indiana's lakeshore, stood 200 feet high. Based on historical photos provided by the National Park Service, the circumference was approximately 2 miles. However, after just 20 years of mining, the tallest dune along the Indiana shore was gone by the 1920’s.

Question 1: What was the approximate volume of Hoosier Slide?

Question 2: How many boxcar loads did it take to carry away Hoosier Slide?

Before the dunes were protected, the silica sand was hauled away in boxcars. The postcard above (left) is a view of Hoosier slide from the south and illustrates the railroad that was used to carry the mined sand away for the manufacture of glass canning jars. The above right photo shows Hoosier Slide as viewed from the north.

Return to Slide 8

What is a dune?

After transport by glaciers, rivers, and longshore processes, sand-sized grains are deposited on beaches by tides and waves. Once the grains are above water and dry, they may be transported by wind (aeolian transport). The wind blows the sand into piles (dunes). Dunes are very dynamic and mobile, migrating according to the predominant wind direction. Vegetation (roots) can anchor the older dunes in place.

The cross-sectional morphology (A) of most sand dunes consists of a gently sloping stoss (or windward) side and a steeper lee (or slipface) side. Dunes vary in their stoss and lee slopes. In general, the slope of the slipface is the angle of repose, of the given grain size. There are also various planform shapes of dunes (B), including transverse, akle, barchan, dome, parabolic, and longitudinal dunes. The types are classified by the shape and predominant wind direction, as indicated by arrows in B.

web.ncf.ca

A

Indiana Dunes’ Mount Baldy has a gently sloping stoss slope and a steeper lee slope! Also, the areas with vegetation tend to be more stable then the “bald” spots.

B

7

Collison , J.D. and D.B. Thompson. Sedimentary Structures. London: Allen & Unwin Inc., 1982: Fig 6.45.

8

Taking a look at Hoosier Slide

Take another look at the postcard on Slide 6, illustrating Hoosier Slide dune. Based on the different characterizations of dunes illustrated on the previous slide, how would you classify Hoosier Slide?

If you follow the red-shaded outline of both figures, you can see that they can be estimated by the shape of a dome!

As illustrated below, the shape of Hoosier Slide was very similar to that of a dome, and so we can classify it as a “dome-shaped dune”. By recognizing the shape as approximately a dome, we can use geometric formulas to calculate a volume for the mined-away dune. The calculated result will be an estimate, because we are approximating its actual shape with a generalized idealization.

9

Estimation

Question 1 (Slide 6) asks you to estimate the volume of the Hoosier Slide dune. We have identified the dune as a dome-shaped dune, and so you are going to use a geometric formula for the volume of an idealized dome. Because you are making an estimate and assuming an idealized geometry, we can use round numbers (i.e., 200 ft for height and 2 mi for circumference). Similarly for Question 2, the volume of a boxcar can be approximated by using an idealized shape—a rectangular prism. Using typical boxcar dimensions (given in a later slide), you can convert the volume of sand mined from Hoosier Slide to an equivalent number of sand-filled boxcars to complete this estimation problem.

Real-world shape of Hoosier Slide

Identified as a dome-shaped dune Approximated as the idealized shape of a dome

Real-world shape of boxcars Approximated as the idealized shape of a rectangular prism

10

Volume calculation

The radius, R, of a sphere is the length from the center of the sphere to the outer surface of the sphere. The radius is used to determine the volume of the sphere (VS):

A hemisphere (or half of a sphere) is also determined by the radius. The volume of a hemisphere (VH) is half of the volume of a sphere:

A circular dome is the geometric form you get when you slice off a portion of the sphere (i.e., you intersect a plane and sphere and select the smaller portion). It is called a circular dome because the base is a circle (we call its radius, r). The other important dimension is h, the shortest length from the center of the circular base to the surface of the dome. A circular dome is a hemisphere if h = r (in which case r = R) If h < r, the formula for its volume (VD) is:

R

R

r

You can test the equation for dome volume by setting h equal to r. Why is this a test? Does the equation pass the test?

h

VD

Return to Slide 12

Starting question 1.

11

Question 1 asks you to estimate the volume of Hoosier Slide dune. Click on the spreadsheet icon to retrieve the spreadsheet for this module and save it immediately to your computer. Start with the tab labeled "Nested SSs for Slides 11-13." The first part of answering the question is to convert miles and feet to meters, as shown below.

Recall, you were given: Hoosier Slide dune height is 200 ft and dune circumference is about 2 mi. Let’s assume that the circumference given is for the circular base (or intersecting spherical plane).

Hint: For three significant figures we can use

1 mile = 1.61 km

1 m = 3.28 ft

h

circumference

Note, we will show three significant figures through the calculation and round off to two at the end. (Actually one would be appropriate for an estimate.)

Indiana Dunes Student

Finishing question 1.

12

Now calculate the dune volume using the formulas given in Slide 10 for the volume of a dome. First, you will need to find the radius of the dome from the given circumference. Recreate the spreadsheet below to estimate the volume of the Hoosier Slide “dome”.

Total volume of the dome-shaped dune

r

Hint:

Circumference :

Therefore, radius :

2C r

2

Cr

Starting and finishing question 2.

13

Assume the boxcars are 40 ft long, 5 ft wide, and 10 ft high. Expand your spreadsheet to find the number of boxcars it would take to equal the volume of Hoosier Slide dune. First calculate the volume of one boxcar.

Hint (Cell F15):

Volume of a Rectangular Boxcar = Length × Height × Width

Hint (Cell A15):

4.5E+05 is Excel’s formatting for scientific notation: 4.5×105. In normal notation, the quantity is 450,000.

Return to Slide 17

Mining the sand

14

The sands of Hoosier Slide were hauled away predominantly by two companies, Pittsburgh Plate Glass and Ball Brothers. The silica sands were used for the manufacturing of glass canning jars. In fact, Ball Brothers produced and controlled the supply of blue glass jars, called “Ball blue” for years starting in the late 1890’s. This special blue of the glass was caused by the amount of oxygen used in the furnaces when melting the glass and the minerals in the sand they used in their glass. These minerals came from the shores of Lake Michigan. Ball Brothers finally discontinued the use of their famous “Ball blue” glass in 1937. Visit the Ball Brothers' Web site to learn more about the use of silica and other minerals in the manufacturing of glass.

Why do you suppose they discontinued the manufacturing of the “Ball blue” glass in 1937?

Mining the sand

15

Can you estimate how many Ball jars were made from the sand of Hoosier Slide?

Recall that density is mass per (divided by) volume. Figure that a Ball jar has a mass of 440 g. Assume that the Ball jars are made of pure quartz, which has a density of 2.67 g/cm3. Assume that the sand has a porosity of 25%, meaning that a cubic meter of sand contains 0.75 m3 of solid grains and 0.25 m3 of air between the grains. Use the volume of sand you estimated in Slide 12 for the Hoosier Slide dune.

Go to it! (Be careful with the units.) Use the spreadsheet (“Slide 15” tab) on Student Worksheet you saved to your computer from Slide 11.

Return to Slide 17

Dunes, boxcars, and ball jars

16

Indiana Dune’s park mission is "to preserve for the educational, inspirational, and recreational use of the public certain portions of the Indiana Dunes and other areas of scenic, scientific, and historic interest and recreational value in the State of Indiana.“ However, before the park was established in 1966, one of the region’s most treasured resources, Hoosier Slide dune, was removed by the boxcar-load for manufacturing glass jars and for other commercial uses. Imagine what the Lake Michigan shoreline would look like today if ALL of the dunes were still lining its shores! Or imagine if NO dunes lined the shores! It is important to preserve and protect our nation’s treasures for our future generations. Although you can no longer visit Hoosier Slide dune, you can still visit Mount Baldy, thanks to the establishment of the National Park System.

Visit http://www.nps.gov/indu/planyourvisit/mt-baldy.htm for more information on one the Great Lakes’ largest remaining coastal dunes.

17

End-of-module assignment

1. Hand in your spreadsheet from Slides 11 through 13.

2. Use a spreadsheet to answer the question from Slide 15 about the number of glass jars.

3. How many quart-sized baggies full of sand would it take to equal the volume of Hoosier Slide? Conversion: 1 qt(US dry) = 0.0011 m³ (Use spreadsheet in Student Worksheet.)

4. It took only 20 years for Hoosier Slide to be carried away in boxcars. If every visitor took one quart-sized baggy full of sand, how many years would it take to “haul” away Hoosier Slide? Use the 2007 annual visitor statistics from the park web site. (Use spreadsheet in Student Worksheet.)

5. Use the spreadsheet from Slides 11-13 to calculate the volume of Hoosier Slide, if the circumference was 2.27 mi and the height was 204 ft. How many boxcars did it take to haul away all of the sand, given the dimensions of 40.01 ft in long, 10.30 ft high, and 5.25 ft wide?

6. What is the percentage difference [(estimate-actual)/actual)*100%] in the volume of Hoosier Slide and the number of boxcars from your answer to Question 5 and the answer from Slide 13? What does this suggest to you about ESTIMATION?

7. a) What is the “general” recipe for the glass used to create the Ball Jars?

b) Explain the importance of the various minerals and metallic oxides used in the manufacturing of the Ball Jars.

c) What colors are derived from the addition of the following elements (note: the following are elemental prior to oxidation, which occurs from the addition of oxygen under high temperatures during the melting process): cobalt (Co), sulfur (S), gold (Au) or copper (Cu), iron (Fe) and carbon (C), nickel (Ni), and tin (Sn) or zinc (Zn)?

Endnotes

18

Slope is defined as the “inclination or degree of slant”. http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/slope%5B3%5D

The slope of a plane can be described as a slope-intercept (y=mx+b) or the “rise” (vertical distance) over the “run” (horizontal distance). See image to the right Return to Slide 7.

Michigan City Evening News, Wednesday, 2 September, 1903

TO SEE SAND HILL. AN INDIANAPOLIS BOY STEALS MOTHER'S PURSE.

And Accompanied By a Boy Friend He Came to This City--Both Lads Taken Into Custody.

A desire to view Hoosier slide caused Orpha Miller, 10-year-old son of Mr. and Mrs. Fred Miller of Oak Hill, Indianapolis, to steal his mother's purse, which contained $11 in money, Tuesday morning and to purchase with the stolen coin two tickets to this city via the Lake Erie and Western road the same to be used by himself and a boy friend, Harry Lemmon, aged 11 years, son of Mr. and Mrs. Charles Lemmon. The youngsters arrived here on the evening train and though hungry and tired after their long ride they did not wait to procure supper or rest but went immediately to the sand hill that has a worldwide reputation and spent nearly an hour climbing up its steep sides and sliding down again. About 10 o'clock the fellows appeared on north Franklin street where they were taken into custody by Patrolman Fred Teidt. When first locked up the youngsters told various tales of how they had procured tickets to this city. The Miller boy first said that he had earned the money by running errands, but later admitted having stolen it. Superintendent Bowlin telegraphed the parents of the boys today and it is expected that one of the fathers will arrive here this afternoon to take the boys back to Indianapolis.

Back to Slide 5.

http://earthsci.org/flood/J_Flood04/masswa/drysand.gif

Angle of Repose is defined as the maximum slope or angle at which loose material remains stable (or does not fall or slide). See image to the right www.tc.umn.edu/~smith213/Glossary%20A%20F.htm

Return to Slide 7.

www.mathwarehouse.com

*Based on information provided by the National Park Service that Hoosier Slide dune was located at the modern NIPSCO site, the circumference was estimated from orthorectified georeferenced 1939 aerial photos.Return to Slide 6.