Badger Prairie County Park is 317 acres of public land managed by Dane County Parks. The geological feature is located within a large restored prairie with a profusion of flowering plants during summer and fall. There are numerous trails in the park for hiking and mountain biking. The Ice Age National Scenic Trail passes through the park. Brown wooden posts with yellow, 2”X6” blazes mark the route of the Ice Age Trail.
Reprinted by permission of the University of Wisconsin Press.
You will need a compass and binoculars to complete this ColdCache. You will not be able to find this ColdCache when there is snow cover on the ground. Please DO NOT scrape snow off to see this feature. It will damage the rock.
These glacial striations are evidence of the glacier’s presence at Badger Prairie County Park. Striations or striae, are scratches or gouges cut into the rock by coarse rock debris carried along in the bottom of the glacier ice. On bedrock they are usually multiple, straight and parallel to the direction of the glacier’s movement.
Photo credit: David Mickelson.
The bedrock hill where these striae are found is composed of Platteville dolomite with a layer of glacial till on top. Platteville dolomite is a sedimentary rock that formed in a shallow sea about 450 million years ago. The thin glacial till layer on top is sediment carried and deposited by the glacier.
Glacial till contains particles varying in size from very fine to large boulders.Till generally makes for good farm land but, large boulders, called “erratics,” are also found in till. Glacial erratics are scattered over much of the glaciated portion of Wisconsin.
During the late Wisconsin Glaciation, between about 30,000 and 18,000 years ago, the Green Bay Lobe of the glacier covered this area. The glacier stopped advancing a short distance from this spot and built the Johnstown Moraine. The two water towers you can see toward the south and west are on the moraine.
The unglaciated portions of Wisconsin and Illinois are called the “Driftless Area.” The Driftless Area begins on the southwest side of Verona, just beyond the moraine.
IATCC is the cache designation to highlight a series of EarthCaches along the Ice Age National Scenic Trail grouped into a special category called "ColdCache."
The Ice Age Trail is one of eleven National Scenic Trails designated by the National Park Service. This unique trail is entirely within the state of Wisconsin and follows along the terminal moraine of the most recent glacier which retreated about 10,000 years ago.
This project is supported by the Ice Age Trail Alliance (IATA). The goal is to bring more visitors to the trail and promote public awareness, appreciation, and understanding of Wisconsin’s glacial landscape.
The IATA has created an awards program to encourage visits to the trail and ColdCache sites. This awards program is separate from, and in addition to, any other Geo- or EarthCache awards program.
A current list of approved ColdCache sites can be found on the “IATCC Bookmark List”. More information on the Ice Age Trail Atlas, the Guidebook, Guthook Guides mobile app for the Ice Age Trail, the ColdCache Project and Awards Program can be found on the “ColdCache Webpage”.
The Geocache Notification Form has been submitted and approved by the Dane County Parks Department. Dane County Parks partners with the Wisconsin Geocaching Association to assist with the monitoring of geocaches on county lands. To learn more about the Badger Prairie County Park, visit the Dane County Parks website and view the Badger Prairie County Park map.
Resources
- Mickelson, David M. GEOLOGY OF THE ICE AGE NATIONAL SCENIC TRAIL. ©2011 by the Board of Regents of the University of Wisconsin System, Reprinted by permission of the University of Wisconsin Press
- Wikipedia
To claim this find:
- Using your compass, what is the directional orientation of the striations?
- Based on this information, what direction do you think the glacier was moving when the striations were made?
- From this spot, look in a southeasterly direction using your binoculars. On the horizon, there is a prominent geological feature approximately 2.7 miles away. This feature was left by the glacier. What is it?