Noah's Ark or Just Another Ship Rock? EarthCache
Noah's Ark or Just Another Ship Rock?
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Welcome to the next edition of Doc.’s Roadside Geology Tour!
Today’s road tour takes us through Adams County, WI. Adams County is a quiet, unassuming little county nestled deep in the heart of Central Wisconsin. It’s known for it’s flat tillable land, high water table, and it’s tamarack swamps.
Then there is the really big boat sitting in the middle of it all....
Area 53....??? Quite possibly.... !
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The listed coordinates will bring to you to what is now a wayside rest on Highway 21, about halfway between Coloma and State Route 1.
Rumor hath that this area was once covered by a great inland sea which advanced and receded five times over millions of years and this mammoth floatilla was the prototype for Noah's Ark during the initial advance of this great sea.
Obvious close inspection of this maritime wonder reveals the obvious. Stone don't float. The design, however, looked awesome on papyrus! Upon further inspection, there was no indication that the Holy Grail nor the Shroud of Turen were being transported in this vessel at this time.**
**(ref: National Enquirer, March 25, 1968.)
You are standing on what was once the bottom of Glacial Lake Wisconsin. The great lake was a short-lived prehistoric glacial lake that existed from approximately 15,000 to 19,000 years ago, at the end of the last Wisconsin ice age.
The lake was located in the "central sand plains" ecoregion of the state. This portion of the state is generally a flat, sandy lake plain which was formed in and around Glacial Lake Wisconsin. The soil here is primarily sandy lake deposits.
Sandstone buttes carved by rapid drainage of the glacial lake, or by wave action when they existed as islands in the lake, are distinctive features of this landscape.
The lake began its formation when ice from the Green Bay Glacial Lobe came into contact with the Baraboo Hills in southwestern Wisconsin. This contact blocked the south-flowing Wisconsin River and due to higher topography on the lakes other margins it continued to fill fed by meltwater from the Wisconsin River.
At its peak Glacial Lake Wisconsin was up to 150 feet in depth and covered over 1,825 square miles. Today, lake deposits are covered in many places by glacial outwash, dune sand, peat and muck. Many of the swamps, marshes and bogs of central Wisconsin were formed as a result of the accumulation of the Lake's more impervious deposits after the last glaciation.
This “unique and fragile” formation is known as Ship Rock. This is one of the easternmost of the castellated mounds of central Wisconsin. It is an isolated pinnacle of Cambrian sandstone.
The term "mound" in Wisconsin refers to any isolated hill. Some, like Necedah Mound or Hamilton Mound, are monadnocks of Precambrian rock. Others, like Blue Mounds or the Platte Mounds, are capped by Silurian outliers. But the term is most commonly applied to the castellated mounds, isolated hills of Cambrian sandstone rising steeply above the central lowlands, and occasionally capped by Ordovician dolomite. Usually, they simply consist of sandstone, and are often steep-sided pinnacles. They are far too delicate to have survived glaciation, and many owe their steepness to wave erosion by Glacial Lake Wisconsin. They are ephemeral features and will be gone in a few tens to hundreds of thousands of years.
To log this EarthCache, please forward in an e-mail to me the following:
1. What is the length of the “Ship?”
2. What is the width of the “Ship?”
3. What do you estimate the height of the “Ship” to be?
4. What direction is “The Ship” headed?; and...
5. Please post a picture documenting your experiences at this geological gem of Adams County.
Thanks for joining me on this edition of Doc.'s Roadside Geology Tour of Adams County!
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