During the drought of 1988, Keith Hendricks noted some parts of the hay fields west of Indian Trail Caverns were not as dormant as others. He took this panoramic series of photographs from the top of a high pile of earth. Clearly some areas are lush green in contrast with other areas where the crop has completely dried up. Keith thinks that the green areas are places where soils are thick enough to hold moisture and that brown areas are places where rock is so close to the surface that roots have nowhere to go in search of moisture.

We attempted to repeat this series of photographs during a sleet storm on May 1, 1997. Four University of Toledo students stood in the field to serve as reference points, marking their locations with flags so that GPS readings could be used to determine precisely where they stood.

The left section of Mr. Hendricks’ photo spread is shown with corresponding shots from 1997. Green vegetation is surrounded by pink lines on the 1988 image, and approximate positions occupied by Toledo students were pasted to the 1988 image. From left to right, students are standing at flag positions 1, 2 and 3.

The central section of Mr. Hendricks’ photo spread is shown with corresponding shots from 1997. Pink lines delineate green areas. From left to right, Toledo students occupy flag positions 2, 3 and 4.

The right section of Mr. Hendricks’ photo spread is shown with corresponding shots from 1997. Pink lines delineate green areas. The lone stu dent shown occupies flag position 4. It appears that a lot of green exists along the highway toward the northwest, but just a few high green plants can conceal a lot of short brown plants when viewed from a relatively low angle.

Flag (student) locations (F1, F2, F3 and F4) determined with GPS were transferred to a map along with the approximate locations of the green areas. DON'T START DIGGING JUST YET - this information will be used to plan geophysical profiles. A dipole-dipole electrical resistivity profile will be run across areas A B C parallel with that trend and through (we hope) the hearts of those green spots. A second profile from C to F2 will check out subsurface conditions between green spots D and E.