Serpent Mound, Ohio

I went to Ohio for a reunion.  While I was headed toward the reunion on 11-11, I decided to stop and see the  Serpent_Mound area ( Wikipedia did a good job discussing it so I've included the link).  I hadn't seen this area in over 30 years and I was curious if it had changed any from the way I remember it. I had always found it an absolutely fascinating place to visit. Most of it was as I recalled it.  They still had the visitor center only it was closed for the winter. The signs had also been updated. The biggest difference I recall is now there is an observation deck. The other thing that was very nice was along the path they now have markers so you know where North, South, East, and West are.  Also they show where the sunrise and sunsets are for the equinoxes and things along the path.  The other thing I really liked was it was in the late fall and a lot of the leaves had already fallen thus I was able to see more.  In the past the heavy vegetation covered the surrounding hills and you couldn't view very much of the surrounding area.  

A few of my pictures -
SERPENT MOUND:

Here's the view from the parking lot and visitor center.

The path to walk around the mound

The observation deck so you can now look down upon the mound

One of the signs along the paths

Another sign on the path

Observing serpent mound from the observation deck

Observing the mound from the ground near the head.

I thought it would be neat how the Indian would observe the sun in certain

positions to know when to plant

Summer Solstice Sunset view

View of the valley below with Brush Creek

The northern view

       While I was there the one thing that has always struck me about the place was how quiet and peaceful it is.  I was surprise there were as many people there as there where, because it is an out of the  way place and you pretty much have to want to go there to find it.  Whenever I've gone before there were never a lot of people there.  I thought with it being the off season and the visitor center/ museum being close there would be even few people than normal.  I was wrong. It was explained to me that a lot of them had come for the nighttime show, because it was 11-11of the 2011th year;  (To them it's a sacred night).  Whenever there is special day like that the museum staff have talks for people to attend.

  I enjoyed my visit and thought that would be it for the my visit to Serpent Mound.  When I went to my reunion I was delighted to see a student had been doing his thesis on the faulting in the Serpent mound area.  He explained to me that he was investigating the possibility of the rise in the area being due to an impact crater ( Serpent_Mound_crater).  He had some evidence to support it.  It really got me thinking about this stuff again because this was all so new to me.  Now I wished I had hiked around some of the valleys to see if I could have seen any of this faulting that was described.  I do know a couple of years ago I went to the meteor Crater in Arizona. I wonder how the two compare to each other. Now I have something new to muse upon and makes me want to find my pictures from that Arizona trip.


Added 4-10-2011
I was looking at the blog Outside the Interzone and saw this map as to why Lockwood likes Oregon over Ohio.  But what caught my eye is the way there was the impact crater at Serpent Mound highlighted.
I don't know where he got the maps but I'm including it here.
Lockwood's Outside the Interzone post
This is the geology I grew up with...