Get this CD ROM!

Greenbeat Magazine looks at the stories in Barton Springs Interactive

Back to main page

Chris Durden has studied ancient and modern life on Barton Creek since 1968. He is Curator of Geology and Entomology at the Texas Memorial Museum. Photo: Texas Environmental Center

This Button Bush is one of many drought-tolerant plants that support life on the Barton Creek Greenbelt each summer. Photo: Texas Environmental Center

These Ram's Horn Fossils are around 100 million years old. Photo: Texas Environmental Center

There's a story in every inch of the hiking trails Barton Creek, and Chris Durden knows more of these stories than nearly anybody, making history another living dimension alongside the plant and animal life in this outdoor classroom. Here's a few things he brought to our attention on a hike along Barton Creek.

Mr. Durden:
"Back in the 1890s there was an Austin highschool teacher by the name of George Stolley, who collected fossils from the Edwards limestone that were preserved in these cave pockets here in the cliff above Campbell's Hole. He sent these fossils to Professor Rohmer in Breslau, then in Germany, who described the first fossils out of the Edwards limestone from this very place.

"Even in the dry season, you can find flowers--nectar sources--for insects. The Button Bush is a shrub with deep roots, so they have a source of water long after the surrounding country has dried up. They allow the insect population to hang on in even drought conditions, which in turn contributes to the divesity of life right in the floor of the Barton Creek valley.

"These are the shells of the Texas Ram's Horn Fossil, a remote relative of the oyster. They are accumulated here in the Del Rio Clay, and they are concentrated on the surface by the removal of Del Rio Clay by rainwater washing it downslope, and leaving the heavier shells behind. Along with the Del Rio Clay, there are some crystals of gypsum, indicating that as the seawater dried out in the sediment, calcium sulfate was deposited as crystals. This is somewhat inhibitory of plant growth, which accounts for the sparseness of vegetation. The Del Rio Clay supports a much more open biological community than the limestones below it."

This story is made possible in part through support from
The National Environmental Education Training Foundation.

TEC recommends Netscape 3.0, or a compatible browser. We are always under construction. Send comments to:webweaver@tec.org