Kettle Moraine/Mouline Kames EarthCache
Kettle Moraine/Mouline Kames
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Parking can be found at N 43 41.858, W 88 05.399. This cache is part of the awesome Parnell Tower trail. It is a lovely walk with lots to see and awesome views, especially from the top of the tower! Enjoy the walk and the views! :) Bring your camera and/or your binoculars, the view is spectacular. This can be a busy place, so please be careful when accessing the cache.
Kettle Moraine is a large moraine in the state of Wisconsin, United States. It stretches from Walworth County in the south to Kewaunee County in the north. It has also been referred to as the Kettle Range and, in geological texts, as the Kettle Interlobate Moraine. The moraine was created when the Green Bay Lobe of the Laurentide Ice Sheet, on the west, collided with the Lake Michigan Lobe of that glacier, on the east, depositing sediment. The western lobe formed Green Bay, Lake Winnebago and the Horicon Marsh. The major part of the Kettle Moraine area is considered interlobate moraine, though other types of moraine features, and other glacial features are common. The moraine is dotted with kettles caused by buried glacial ice that calved off the terminus of a receding glacier and got entirely or partly buried in glacial sediment and subsequently melted. This process left depressions ranging from small ponds to large lakes and enclosed valleys. Water-filled kettles range in depth from 3 to 200 ft (0.9 to 60 m). The topography of this area is widely varied between the lakes and kettles and the hills of glacial deposits, which can rise up to 300 ft (90 m) from the lakes. The largest include Holy Hill, Pulford Peak and Lapham Peak. Elkhart Lake, Geneva Lake, and Little Cedar Lake are among the larger kettles now filled by lakes. Kames are also found in the kettle moraine area, and are mounds of compressed glacial till. A moulin or glacier mill is a roughly circular, vertical to nearly vertical well-like shaft within a glacier or ice sheet which water enters from the surface. The term is derived from the French word for mill.[1] They can be up to 10 meters wide and are typically found on ice sheets and flat areas of a glacier in a region of transverse crevasses.[2] Moulins can reach the bottom of the glacier, hundreds of meters deep, or may only reach the depth of common crevasse formation (about 10–40 m) where the stream flows englacially.[2] They are the most typical cause for the formation of a glacier cave. Moulins are parts of the internal structure of glaciers, that carry meltwater from the surface down to wherever it may go.[3] Water from a moulin often exits the glacier at base level, sometimes into the sea, and occasionally the lower end of a moulin may be exposed in the face of a glacier or at the edge of a stagnant block of ice. Parts of this area have been protected as part of the Kettle Moraine State Forest. To log this cache, climb to the top of the tower and use the Landmark Locater Viewer. Please email me the answers to the following questions: 1. Estimate the length of the ridge that forms the Kettle Moraine, how long ago was it formed? 2. What other features can you see? 3. How many moulin kames can you see to the west? 4. Estimate the difference in height between Holy Hill and Dundee Mountain? 5. Using the viewer, locate and describe what formed the Mouline Kames? 6. Pictures are no longer required, but would be greatly appreciated! :) Happy caching!
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