Glacial Landscape

Meltwater from the Laurentide Ice Sheet greatly altered the landscape of Wisconsin, creating the bluff and leaving the last part of the Wisconsin Glaciation notably different from areas affected earlier in the Ice Age or never reached by the massive ice sheets. The outermost limit of the last glacier is marked by a conspicuous ridge of deposited debris, and the many lakes, wetlands, and irregular landscape of western and northern Wisconsin are also direct results of the last glacier. Glaciers form when snow remains in the same area year-round and accumulates until it transforms into ice, with new layers burying and compressing earlier ones. As glaciers move, they transport material, sculpt and carve the land beneath them, and through their weight and gradual movement reshape the landscape over hundreds or thousands of years by eroding the land surface and carrying broken rocks and soil far from their original places. This process produced landforms such as drumlins, eskers, floodplains, ground moraines, kames, kettles and kettle lakes, and terminal moraines.

Houlton, Wisconsin · United States