The western half of the Smoky Hills section is bounded on the east by an escarpment capped by Greenhorn Limestone and on the west by the much bolder Fort Hays Escarpment. Both features are most prominent along Saline and Smoky Hill rivers and manifest progressively diminished relief away from these major stream courses. Upland topography is relatively flat where underlain by the upper part of the Greenhorn Limestone or lower part of the Carlile Shale, but toward the western edge of the Smoky Hills, steep slopes and local badlands are developed on the younger parts of the Carlile in bluffs, buttes, and small mesas capped by the Fort Hays Limestone Member. In the part of the Smoky Hills section that we will see, maximum relief is near 300 feet along the Saline River and 150 feet along the Smoky Hill River. Terraces underlain by Pleistocene alluvium are preserved along major streams and some tributaries, but are more conspicuous in the valley of the Smoky Hill River. The upland surface is thinly veneered by Pleistocene loess. The lowest elevation along the route of the field trip is approxi- mately 1570 feet above sea level and lies in the bed of Smoky Hill River at Stop 1. High Plains West of the Fort Hays Escarpment the High Plains section is underlain by Pierre Shale, Niobrara Chalk, Ogallala Formation, and various deposits of Pleistocene age. The uplands are, in general, monotonously flat owing largely to a widely distributed but discontinuous veneer of loess laid down during three episodes of eolian deposition that occurred during the Illinoisan and Wisconsinan Stages. Bedrock formations of Pliocene and Cretaceous age are exposed locally in the upland areas. Thousands of shallow depressions that dot the upland surface of the High Plains have been the subject of much discussion in the literature and have been attributed to the activity of buffaloes, wind, solution, compaction, and silt infiltration (Frye and Leonard, 1952, p. 203). In the western part of the region that we will cross during the second day, bedrock beneath the upland surface is largely that of the Ogallala Formation; farther east on our route this formation is thin, patchy, or absent, and Niobrara beds form nearly all of the upland bedrock. In the area of this trip the High Plains surface is slashed by eastward- to southeast- ward-flowing streams of the Smoky Hill River drainage basin. Smoky Hill River valley is 15 miles or more wide where it cuts into soft deposits of the Smoky Hill Chalk Member and Pierre Shale in Gove and Logan counties. The inner valley, including low-level, late Pleistocene terraces and Recent flood plain, ranges in width from 1/4 to 1 mile. In Logan and Gove counties, the outer parts of the valleys are characterized in many places by broad streamward-sloping, debris-veneered erosional surfaces that Frye and Leonard (1952, p. 27) called "flanking pediments." These surfaces are steepest at the valley edges, just below the upland margin, and downslope they flatten until they are nearly horizontal toward