Providence Canyon

Located a few miles west of Lumpkin, Georgia, -- about 25 miles south of Columbus -- Providence Canyon cuts a growing gouge into Cretaceous and Tertiary sediments of Georgia's western Coastal Plain. Providence Canyon -- sometimes ridiculed as a "big gully" -- apparently began to form in the early 1800's when negligent farming practices encouraged erosion of soft Coastal Plain sediments. In the vicinity of Providence Canyon, the clay-rich and relatively erosion-resistant Clayton Formation lies at the surface. When runoff breached the Clayton Formation, underlying softer sand of the Providence Formation began rapidly to erode.

In its origin, Providence Canyon has some similarity to the Little Grand Canyon near Lowden, Washington, where a few days' overflow from a blocked irrigation ditch in the 1920's excavated a crevice now 120 feet deep in beds of glacial sediment. Whatever its rude beginnings, Providence Canyon today hosts a Georgia State Park, providing hikers, campers and amateur geologists a convenient window into the late Cretaceous and early Tertiary. For botanical interest, rare Plumleaf Azalea blooms in the canyon's depths.

Providence Canyon

Many people believe canyons take a long time to form. In North America, though, there is a canyon that simply wasn’t there 150 years ago.¹

Providence Canyon is near the town of Lumpkin in southwest Georgia. Where there were once rolling hills covered with untouched pine forest, there is now a deep chasm with nine finger-like canyons. They range in size up to 50 metres (160 feet ) deep, 180 metres (600 feet) wide and 400 metres (1,300 feet) long.²^,³

The exposed canyon bluffs are extremely beautiful with many bands of different coloured rocks—bright red clay, white kaolin, as well as sands coloured ochre, pink, orange, beige, purple, lavender, grey, yellow, tan and black.⁴^,⁵

In the base of the canyon, where it is often humid, trees such as sweet gums, weeping willows, tupelo, maples and blackjack oaks grow.²

The area is a haven for over 150 varieties of wildflowers, including dwarf irises, rhododendrons, foxgloves, magnolias, evening primroses and the rare red and orange plumleaf azaleas.^6–8

Wildlife such as white-tailed deer, red and grey foxes, raccoons, armadillos and birds such as woodpeckers, warblers, turkeys, thrushes and owls may be seen.⁸

What happened here?

What caused this dramatic change from rolling hills to such a ruggedly beautiful landscape? It’s all tied up with the settlement of the area for farming in the early 1800s.

Native Americans of the Creek (Muscogee)⁹ tribe inhabited the area now known as Georgia long before European settlement. Between 1790 and 1830, as the European population increased six-fold, Creek land was successively resumed by the state government for settlement by farmers.¹⁰

Local folklore says that trickles of water running down old Native American trails started the erosion.¹¹ Other stories say that water running off a barn built by the Patterson family in 1855³ or perhaps off the local schoolhouse roof,⁴^,¹¹ caused the problem. These accounts aren’t too far from the truth.

Bad farming practices

From the 1820s onward, clear-felling of trees (the roots of which deeply stabilize soil), to grow crops such as cotton and corn, set the scene for the start of rampant erosion,³^,⁵ as the land was exposed to the ravages of water run-off during the area’s frequent heavy thunderstorms.¹² The uppermost strata comprised the resistant iron-rich clay of the Clayton formation, and overlay the less resistant unconsolidated sands of the Providence and Ripley formations.¹³ Erosion accelerated once the water got beneath the red clay to the sands underneath.¹²

Back then, farmers did not preserve topsoil, or use fertilizers.³,¹⁴ Their habit was to exhaust the land with crops and then abandon it.¹⁵ By ploughing up and down hills, instead of across, they encouraged erosion gullies to form.¹⁶

Old people living in Lumpkin in the 1940s say they remember stepping over ditches only 1 to 1.5 metres (3 to 5 feet) deep on their way to school in the long-gone township of Humber in this area.¹⁷

Growing canyon forced church to move

Historical records show that the local Providence United Methodist church opened in 1832.¹ The church had to be moved in 1859 because of the danger of being undermined by the growing canyon.¹²

Heavy rainfall during storms removed vast amounts of sand and silt from the canyon walls to the floor. These were then washed down the braided Turner’s Creek into the Chattahoochee River.¹¹^,¹² On the way, the sediment blocked off the end of neighbouring valleys, forming two lakes known as North and South Glory Holes.¹²

In the 1940s, farmers had to watch every little ditch in case it turned into another gully. They said the soil melted like sugar and ran like water.¹¹

Each year, most farmers lost some animals and farm equipment over the canyon rim. Once anything went over it was abandoned because recovery was extremely difficult.¹¹

Locals spoke of lying in bed on cold winter nights during heavy rain and hearing bangs that sounded like cannon fire, as big chunks of earth fell from the steep-sided walls into the canyons.¹¹

Scientists have studied cores to find out how quickly sediments were deposited in the lakes from debris washed down the creek. After they had correlated the core sediment layers with the heavy rainfall records taken at Lumpkin, they tentatively estimated that canyon development started in 1846.¹² It was only 13 years later that the church had to be shifted to the other side of the road because the canyon had come too close!

Formation of a state park

By 1971, 448 hectares (1,108 acres)¹⁸ in the immediate area were set aside to become the Providence Canyon State Park to preserve and protect this unique area.² The park is now known as one of the seven natural wonders of Georgia and is often called Georgia’s Little Grand Canyon.¹⁸

Visitors are able to walk through nine of the canyons that are part of the day access area, or around the trail that skirts the rim where views into the canyon are spectacular.⁸

Canyon keeps on growing

Measurements taken between 1984 and 1994 confirm that the canyon is still growing mainly in width.¹⁹ Even now fences have to be relocated and roads rerouted because of these changes.²⁰

So, it does not take millions of years for huge canyons to form—it just takes the right conditions. If it had not been seen to happen, hardly anyone would have believed it. Erosion after the global Flood would have been especially rapid through the still soft, freshly laid sediments. In fact, it has been documented in this magazine that erosion overall is happening so fast that the continents cannot be millions of years old or they would have all eroded away.²¹

Providence Canyon beautifully illustrates how the geology of the earth is consistent with the short timescale of the Bible, provided we understand the conditions properly.

Pictures from the site: http://www.cviog.uga.edu/Projects/gainfo/photogallery/htmpages/providence1.htm

Information from this site: http://www.georgiaencyclopedia.org/nge/Article.jsp?id=h-943

Providence Canyon is a network of gorges in southwest Georgia created by the erosion of soft, multicolored soils. Often called "Georgia's Little Grand Canyon," Providence Canyon consists of several chasms, plateaus, cliffs, and pinnacles. Erosion has exposed the geologic record of several million years within its walls, and minerals have stained the sediments, creating a display of colors that range from white to various shades of pink, purple, red, brown, yellow, and black.

Identified by the Georgia Department of Natural Resources as one of the state's "Seven Wonders," the site is protected by Providence Canyon State Park, located approximately 150 miles southwest of Atlanta, in Stewart County. The 1,109-acre park includes 16 canyons, some as deep as 150 feet, all of which together make up the site known as Providence Canyon. From a trail along the rim, several overlooks offer views of the canyon walls, in which forty-three different colors of sands have been identified.

The rare plumleaf azalea (Rhododendron prunifolium), found only in southwestern Georgia and eastern Alabama, blooms in Providence Canyon from mid to late summer, in the largest known wild colony of this species.

Although the appearance of Providence Canyon evokes comparisons to the landscape of the American Southwest, its history is unique. The canyon consists of huge gullies sculpted of soil, not by the action of a river or stream but by rainwater runoff from farm fields.

Historical accounts indicate that the canyon began forming in the early 1800s as the result of poor soil-management practices.

Native forest cover had been cleared so the land could be farmed, and early-nineteenth-century farmers in this region took no measures to avoid soil erosion. Small gullies formed and rapidly grew deeper and more extensive. By 1850 ditches three to five feet deep had been cut into the land, further concentrating runoff and increasing the rate of erosion.

Although the formation of Providence Canyon might be seen as the result of a distinct lack of providence, its name apparently came from Providence Methodist Church, established around 1832. A church building and a schoolhouse originally stood on land that now lies between the main gorges of the canyon. In 1859 a new church building was erected across the road from the canyon; it still stands and is occasionally used for special services.

Providence Canyon, which lies in the Coastal Plain region of Georgia, has been carved from unconsolidated sediments deposited by water in ancient streams, seas, deltas, and coastal beaches between 59 and 74 million years ago. Geologists separate the sediments forming the canyon into four major geologic formations: Baker Hill, Clayton, Providence, and Ripley.

The Baker Hill formation is the youngest and forms the uppermost part of soils in Providence Canyon State Park. Deposited about 59 to 62 million years ago during the Paleogene period, this formation does not appear in the canyon walls, but the entrance road to the park and the Interpretive Center lie on top of it.

The Clayton formation, visible in the top part of the canyon walls, also was deposited during the Paleogene period, about 63 to 65 million years ago, just after the age of the dinosaurs. Its fairly coarse sand is a reddish color, caused by the presence of iron oxide. Near the base of this formation, iron oxides have precipitated into a thin, dark layer of iron ore, which has been mined in some areas outside the park.

The Providence formation, also known as the Providence Sand, makes up most of the canyon walls. One hundred and nineteen feet thick, it was deposited during the Cretaceous period, about 67 to 70 million years ago. The upper layer of this formation consists of very fine sand mixed with a white clay called kaolin. The middle layer is coarser-grained and more colorful, with crossbeds stained yellow by limonite and purple by manganese. The lowest and oldest layer is a black and yellow mica-rich clay. This part of the formation is known as the Perote member and is visible near the bottom of the canyon.

The Ripley formation forms the canyon floor. Deposited during the Cretaceous period, about 70 to 74 million years ago, it is orange in color, and its composition varies from clay to a massively bedded sand. This formation is the richest of the layers in fossils, but it is poorly exposed and, in the park, mostly overgrown.

Providence Canyon continues to erode and change due to surface water runoff and the undercutting force of groundwater. The clay content of sediments in the floor of the canyon makes it more resistant, and the growth of pine trees, laurel bushes, and other vegetation helps to stabilize the soil, reducing the rate of vertical erosion. Lateral erosion, however, continues, and because of the soft nature of the upper soils, changes can happen very rapidly. Gorges grow larger, and the rim of the canyon often shows signs of crumbling and receding. Pinnacles gradually decrease in size and can disappear overnight in heavy rains.

Information from: http://www.speciesplantarum.org/pc.html

Providence Canyon State Park, Georgia

Providence Canyon State Park is located about an hour south of Columbus, Georgia, on the coastal plain near the Alabama border. It is actually a huge erosion gully started by poor farming practices in the mid 1800's. The geology of the area is such that fine, loose sandy soil erodes easily whenever rain runs off. The bottom of the canyon lies below the water table, which meant that a thin layer of water, 1/2 to 1 inch deep, was constantly running in a sheet across the bottom of the canyon when we visited. Plan on getting your shoes wet if you visit.

We visited the canyon in late July to coincide with the blooming of the Rhododendron prunifolium, the rare native Plum Leaf Azalea. It is currently a candidate to become a federally endangered plant. It is found in only six counties in Georgia and three in Alabama. We found out about the azaleas in Providence Canyon by reading the journal of Henry T. Skinner. Skinner was a botanist who made an amazing journey in 1951, driving 25,000 miles in 6 months around the eastern and southeastern U.S. searching for native azaleas. He sent approximately 8,000 herbarium specimens and 500 living plants back to the Morris Arboretum. He recorded in his journal a description of the beauty and astounding numbers of azaleas in Providence Canyon. When he visited the canyon, he had to walk in and had to choose between hiking miles through cat-briar entangled hillsides or wading upstream through the cottonmouth infested creek. He chose the creek. After reading Skinner's account, we had to visit the canyon to see the azaleas for ourselves.

After initially descending to the Canyon floor from the visitor's center, we began our hike upstream into the gullies. Here's what we began to see- native Plum Leaf Azaleas in bloom all along the canyon walls. Many bushes were ten feet high or taller and some hillsides were covered with the bushes under the trees.

You can see how thin the water layer is, here just a film of running water on the ground. You can also see how many blossoms are on the azaleas.
With a camera it is difficult to capture the large size of the bushes and to show how many of them are clustered together in the woods in some places. This photo was the best we could do, but it doesn't begin to capture their beauty.

One bush had Spanish Moss growing from it. There wasn't much Spanish Moss in the canyon and this was about the farthest north it grows. We did see some as far north as Columbus, Georgia, right along the Chattahoochee River.

Information is from the site: http://www.southpoint.com/states/ga/providence.htm

Providence Canyon State Park - Georgia

Eroded canyon of Providence Canyon State Park

"Georgia's Little Grand Canyon "

Providence Canyon State Park preserves a 1,108-acre area containing 16 canyons eroded to a depth of 150 feet. The winding gullies exhibit multicolored strata creating breathtaking vistas.

The canyons were formed less than 150 years ago when settlers began clearing trees to farm the land. The cultivation caused the easily-eroded soil to wash away. There were ditches 3 - 5 feet deep by the mid-1800's. The ditches soon became canyons. Some are now over half a mile long and 300 feet across.

Tree growing through an ancient abandoned truck

Tree growing through an ancient abandoned truck

Many colorful hues make up the sides of the canyons. They are a mix of tan, white, buff, pink, red ,salmon, orange and lavender.

At the bottom of the canyons is the ancient ocean floor where fossils exist.

The Civilian Conservation Corp planted trees and plants around the area in the 1930's trying to stop the erosion. In 1971 the area was made a state park to try to preserve it's natural wonder.

Information is from: http://www.gpc.edu/~pgore/Earth&Space/GPS/erosion.html

Providence Canyon State Park, near Lumpkin, GA (south of Columbus) contains a spectacular series of canyons or deep erosional gullies as much as 200 feet (66 m) deep. Sometimes called " Georgia's Little Grand Canyon", Providence Canyon is one of the Seven Natural Wonders of Georgia. The canyon is actually a geologically young feature. It was not here when the first settlers reached the region in the early 1800's. The story goes that it was formed by a woman throwing her dishwater out into the yard, year after year. That is not quite accurate. The story is a little more complex.

The canyon is a testimony to poor farming practices, which led to runaway soil erosion, and illustrates the need for sound soil conservation practices. When the land was first cleared for agriculture in the early 1800's, farmers plowed straight up and down the hills. (Contour plowing did not come into fashion until much later). The furrows were a good conduit for rainwater runoff. By 1850, gullies ranging from 3 to 5 feet deep (1 to 2 meters) had begun to appear in the fields. Once gullies appeared, erosion rates accelerated, and the land became useless for farming. The gullies deepened and widened into canyons, which continue to expand.

The rate of downcutting by erosion was calculated to be about 8 inches per year between 1820 and 1930 (based on the total volume of sediment removed by erosion). In addition to downcutting, headward erosion (or erosion at the head of a canyon) caused the canyons to lengthen. Rates of headward erosion were measured from aerial photos. Between 1955 and 1968, the average headward erosion of the canyons was calculated to be about 6 feet (2 m) per year. The softness of the sediments in this area, and poor farming practices led to the severe erosion that formed Providence Canyon.