Place: 4274 Chamberlin (Refreshments will be served)
Speaker: David Mickelson, UW Department of Geology
Abstract: Thousands of cigar-shaped elongate hills dominate the landscape to the east and north of Madison. Produced by glaciers 15,000 to 25,000 years ago, they have a range of heights from meters or less to several hundred meters and have distinctly different length-to-width ratios in different areas. All are parallel to former ice flow direction. They are composed of sediments deposited by the last glaciation, but many also contain older deposits. Why are they so abundant in Wisconsin, but absent from the huge areas covered by the last glaciation in most of Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, and Ohio?