Department Homepage
About the Department
News & Events
Degrees & Courses
Research
Faculty and Staff
Resources & Facilities
Useful LInks
Search thiw site
 
Go to the CNS Homepage
Go to the Diversity Homepage
Go to the UNI Homepage
Web design by Siobahn Morgan

Nature's Secret
by Janet Lofquist

Date Installed: September 1994
Cost: $19,500
Description: "Nature's Secret" is composed of three different elements. The first element consists of five large pieces of Anamosa limestone.  This rock is found in the east central part of Iowa and was formed by the ancient seas in the Silurian era, 425 million years ago. This type of limestone is typified by its fine grained sedimentary nature and creamy buff color.

Inset into each of the five stones are seven bronze cylinders. The cylinders indicate the positions of the main stars that make up the asterism known as the Big Dipper.  At first glance you may not recognize the Big Dipper on some of the limestone pieces.  This is because each stone displays the Big Dipper at different times.  The five limestone slabs show the configuration of the stars of the Big Dipper as they appeared one million years ago, five hundred thousand years ago, one hundred thousand years ago, their current locations and their locations one hundred thousand years from now.

The final element of the sculpture is a group of three spherical forms with a barb-like surface to represent microscopic ragweed pollen grains.  Pollen grains preserved in fossil plant remains provide an important clue to the vegetative and climatic changes in the ancient landscape.  Approximately 7,700 years ago, the prairie had become well established across the state of Iowa, with grasses, wormwood, sunflowers and ragweed making up the majority of it.

The sculpture viewed as a whole suggests a sense of time measured in geological, paleontological and astronomical time scales, as well as showing the scale of change on a microscopic and macroscopic (or telescopic) scale.