Home on the Kettle Range (Earthcache) EarthCache
Home on the Kettle Range (Earthcache)
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Earthcache Requirements:
To claim this cache as "found", email answers to the following questions:
1. At the posted coordinates, find the kettle. What is the approximate depth and width of this kettle? Is it a normal-sized kettle for this region?
2. How would you describe the shape of this kettle? (perfectly round? oblong? bell-shaped? irregular?) Is this shape typical for kettles?
3. How was this kettle formed? (choose one)
(A) The kettle was formed as the large, forceful glacier moved forward and carved out big divots in the land.
(B) The kettle was formed during a glacial retreat when large blocks of ice melted under rocks and dirt and left a big hole where the ice used to be.
(C) The kettle was formed when a woolly mammoth left a giant footprint.
The Northern Kettle Interlobate Moraine
Look around where you’re standing in the Northern Kettle Moraine Forest. If you can imagine yourself here 15,000 years ago, you would be frozen in a colossal sheet of ice called a glacier! The movement of the glacier as it advanced forward and then melted back left the lasting geological features that you see now.
The Northern Kettle Moraine, also known as the "Northern Kettle Interlobate Moraine" or "The Kettle Range", is the name given to one big moraine that was created when two lobes of ice collided together. A moraine is basically a ridge of sediment pushed by the glacier and then deposited at the outer edge of the glacier. The Green Bay Lobe of the glacier, on the west, collided with the Lake Michigan Lobe of the glacier, on the east, depositing sediment. The western glacier formed Green Bay, Lake Winnebago and the Horicon Marsh, while the eastern one formed Lake Michigan.
This area was named "Kettle Moraine" because there were so many kettles dotting the landscape amid the moraine. A kettle is a depression caused by large chunks of buried glacial ice. Sometimes a block of ice would get separated from the retreating glacier and get buried among the debris. When this block of ice finally melted during a warmer period, a basin or depression would be left in its place as the sediment around the ice collapsed. Some of these larger kettles filled with water and became a kettle lake. Many of Wisconsin’s lakes, ponds, bogs, and marshes are actually Ice Age kettles that filled with water when the ice melted.
Kettles range in shapes and sizes with a depth commonly ranging from 3 to 200 feet deep and a width ranging from a few yards across to usually not more than 500 feet wide unless it's a large lake. Kettles have more shapes than the typical circular depression that people may expect. Kettles are rarely perfectly symmetrical circles, and irregular shapes are the most common. They are sometimes shaped like a funnel or an inverted bell. Shallow kettles are sometimes shaped like saucer-like hollows while others are oval, oblong, elliptical, or are extended into trough-like or winding hollows.
Sources:
1. The National Park Service: http://www.nps.gov/history/history/online_books/science/2/chap4.htm
2. Wisconsin State Parks: http://dnr.wi.gov/topic/parks/name/kmn/
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The Geocache Notification Form has been submitted to the Kettle Moraine State Forest -Northern Unit. Geocaches placed on Wisconsin Department of Natural Resource managed lands require permission by means of a notification form. Please print out a paper copy of the notification form, fill in all required information, then submit it to the land manager. The DNR Notification form and land manager information can be obtained at: http://www.wi-geocaching.com/hiding
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