Glacial Kames in Ashland County, Ohio EarthCache
Glacial Kames in Ashland County, Ohio
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From your vantage point at the given coordinates you should be able to see some unusual glacial features all around you. Notice the rounded hillocks in the surrounding area (in fact, you are on one). These are glacial kames and are not found in many places in Ohio. In fact, this area here is one of the finest examples of these features in the state. Glacial kames are the remnants of lakes that existed on the surface of glaciers. When lakes formed on top of glaciers, sediment would accumulate and stratify in them. Then when the glacier melted, this sediment would be deposited below where the lake had existed. The sediment-filled mounds, glacial kames, consist of layers of various sizes of rocks, from large boulders down to fine silt and clay (although often the silt and clay particles have been washed away). The kames at this site were deposited by the Wisconsinan Glacier about 12,000 years ago.
The above description of glacial kames has been distilled from two sources:
Goldthwait, R.P. (1959). Scenes in Ohio during the last ice age. The Ohio Journal of Science, 59 (4), pp. 193-216.
Nelson, S.A. (2003). Glaciers and Glaciation. (visit link)
Logging Requirements
Earthcaches are placed in order to give people an educational experience. For this earthcache, you must complete the following two tasks. The picture must be posted as part of your log (or a description e-mailed to the owner), and all answers must be e-mailed to the owner. Please do not post answers in your log, or I will be forced to delete the log (and I really don't want to have to do that).
1. Please take a photograph of you and/or your GPSr with one or more glacial kames in the background, or e-mail me with a description of what you can see from this vantage point.
2. Please answer the following three questions about the glacial kames at this location. There are two main industries in the immediate area. What are the industries? What about the composition of glacial kames might make this area a good location for these two industries? Also, given what you have learned about glacial kames, how do you think that the multiple kames might have formed in this area?
Thanks for visiting this earthcache, and I hope that you now enjoy and understand this glacially-unique area even more!
Additional Hints
(No hints available.)