Providence Canyon, as this area is officially designated, is located southwest Georgia's Coastal Plains region near the Alabama border. This area was not a canyon at all, but rather a dense forest. However, that all transmuted when farmers moved into the area in the early 1800s and commenced growing the time period's most lucrative crop, cotton. They moved in, cut down the trees, and commenced plowing and planting their seeds in long straight lines. Of course, the farmers did not realize at the time when these traditional farming methods were authentically initiating a string of events that would drastically transmute the landscape. Had the farmers thought about land preservation techniques such as rotating the crops in the field every year, growing cover crops to the soil, and plowing the soil with the contour method, the landscape would have never been altered? However, these methods were not developed until 100 years later, and so the farmers just utilized the best cognizance they had at the time.
Since the soil in this region was very soft and sandy, every time it rained, the plowed soil would be washed away by erosion. Soon, minuscule ditches were etched into the farmland. With every rainstorm these gullies just kept expanding…show more content… If you get the opportunity to visit, you will get to optically discern Georgia's geologic history in the park's 1,108 acres. As you study the canyon's intriguing rock formations, take notice of the different colors of sand that are layered on top of each other like pages in a book. Millions of years ago, this area was covered by ocean waters and over time variants of silt and sediment was deposited into deep layers of soil. The sand in Providence Canyon comes in a variety of colors: deep pumpkin orange, mustard yellow, fiery red, sugar-white kaolin, pink, dusty lavender, and nebulous grey. Scientists have counted a grand total of 43 colors of sand in
