Wisconsin Water Cycle

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introduction and Overview of Key Concepts
Wisconsin, the state known to me as home, is recognized by others as the Dairy State, a name that represents the hundreds of farms found across the area. The flat terrain in most of the state makes this a perfect location for agriculture, but Wisconsin didn’t always look the way it does now. Throughout time, the various steps in the water cycle have sculpted our 30th state. The water cycle describes the sun-powered process of how water transitions between phases. Phase changes of water drive a lot of what happens on Earth’s surface. It has the power to change the way our world appears. Below is an illustration of what the cycle looks like.

The power to change the appearance of Earth’s surface …show more content…
As defined by Hamblin and Christiansen (2004), “A glacier is an open system of flowing ice. Water enters the system as snow, which is transformed into ice by compaction and recrystallization” (374). About 100,000 years ago, the Earth had cooled enough for glaciers to expand further south from the poles. A continental glacier named the Laurentide Ice Sheet, spread down North America and went as far south as Wisconsin about 26,000 years ago (Ice age geology, n.d.). For 10,000 years, the Laurentide Ice Sheet made its way through the state, creating a glacier with a depth of 1,600 meters, or one mile (Ice Age National Scientific Reserve Wisconsin, n.d.). Due to variations in the terrain, multiple lobes of the glacier were created. The four main lobes are known as the Superior, Chippewa, Green Bay, and Lake Michigan Lobes. Some minor lobes are the Wisconsin Valle and the Langlade Lobe. Eventually, the temperatures rose again, and it took 6,500 years for all the lobes to disappear completely from Wisconsin (Ice age geology, n.d.). Above is a photo that shows the location of the Laurentide Ice Sheet, along with the area that each lobe was found …show more content…
The ice sheet moved through the sate, picking up tons of rocks and soil. It then incorporated this new material into its mass and carried it south These glaciers also pushed and lined material into ridges and/or moraines, especially on the leading edge of the ice sheet. This created the bands of hills marking the farthest points of the glacier advance known as end moraines. This continued until the climate became warmer. As the glacier began to melt, kames and eskers formed. This occurred when debris washed through holes in the ice and then filled up with material. Drumlins, a landform that Wisconsin is particularly known for were formed as sediments were dropped off. They are teardrop shaped and they point in the direction that the ice sheet was moving. Large rocks that had been carried by the glacier were also dropped off as the ice melted, forming erratics. Bodies of water occurred as pieces of ice surrounded by debris melted into kettle lakes (Ice Age National Scientific Reserve Wisconsin, n.d.). These landforms are pictured above to give a better understanding of what they looked like. Below, there is also a picture that illustrates where some types of glacial landforms can be found throughout Wisconsin. Looking at this photo, it is easy to spot where the outlines of the glacial lobes once were.
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