Lake Michigan Shoreline EarthCache
rogheff: pulling this cache before placing new caches.
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The Lake Michigan shoreline is varied, ranging from gently sloping glacial lakeplain of Kenosha County in the southeastern corner of the state to the rocky cliffs of the Door Peninsula and Grand Traverse Islands in the northeast.
The shoreline along the eastern side of Green Bay, including the Door Peninsula, features clay bluffs, sand and gravel beaches, and dolomite cliffs that reach a height of 150 feet above the bay (Anderson et al. 2002). The Lake Michigan shoreline of Door County consists of low dolomite cliffs and ledges, extensive horizontal exposures of dolomite "beach," active beach and dune systems, shallow embayments with extensive marsh and meadow associations, and complex ridge and swale systems that harbor an intricate mosaics of wetland and upland plant communities. Red clay bluffs derived from glacio-lacustrine deposits, ranging from 10 to 70 feet in height, characterize the Lake Michigan shore of southernDoor County, south to Milwaukee County.
Sand beaches, active dunes, and forested ridge and swale systems interrupt the bluffs from Point Beach(Manitowoc County)south to Kohler-Andrae Dunes (Sheboygan County). Wetlands are scarce along this stretch of the lakeshore but a major dune complex situated south of Sheboygan contains interdunal wetlands and separates a large wetland bordering the Black River from the waters of Lake Michigan.
The southern Wisconsin shore has areas of gently sloping, low sandbanks fronted by wide beaches. Between Port Washington and Milwaukee, bluffs composed of red till and assorted stratified deposits reach heights of 140 feet, decreasing to 25 feet near Kenosha. The bluff bases normally have narrow beaches of sand or cobbles and contain few wetlands.
South of Kenosha there is an extensive but degraded dune system (which I highly recommend you visit and find my Southport Regional TB Redistribution Cache at the same time)and the nationally significant Chiwaukee Prairie, an area of extremely high significance to many rare or declining native plants and animals.
Mr. Bill Hoare of Carthage College is aware of and gave permission to place this cache.
DO NOT VISIT THIS CACHE AFTER DARK!!!
To get credit for this cache, email me the description of the ground on which you are standing. You should be standing where the water meets the land. Look 5' up the beach and 5' into the water - describe the ground. Don't tell me "sand" or "beach".
Additional Hints
(No hints available.)