Wood County is a county located in the U.S. state of Wisconsin. As of the 2020 census, the population was 74,207. Its county seat is Wisconsin Rapids. The county is named after Joseph Wood, a member of the Wisconsin State Assembly. Wood County comprises the Wisconsin Rapids-Marshfield, WI Micropolitan Statistical Area and is included in the Wausau-Stevens Point-Wisconsin Rapids, WI Combined Statistical Area.
The St. Croix River is a tributary of the Mississippi River, approximately 169 miles (272 km) long, in the U.S. states of Wisconsin and Minnesota. The lower 125 miles (201 km) of the river form the border between Wisconsin and Minnesota. The river is a National Scenic Riverway under the protection of the National Park Service. A hydroelectric plant at the Saint Croix Falls Dam supplies power to the Minneapolis–St. Paul metropolitan area.
The Wisconsin River is a tributary of the Mississippi River in the U.S. state of Wisconsin. At approximately 430 miles long, it is the state's longest river. The river's name was first recorded in 1673 by Jacques Marquette as "Meskousing", which is rooted in the Algonquian languages used by the area's Native American tribes. The river's original meaning is obscure, but French explorers who followed in the wake of Marquette later modified the name to "Ouisconsin", and so it appears on Guillaume de L'Isle's map. This was simplified to "Wisconsin" in the early 19th century, before being applied to Wisconsin Territory and finally the state of Wisconsin.
The Wisconsin Glacial Episode, also called the Wisconsin glaciation, was the most recent glacial period of the North American ice sheet complex. This advance included the Cordilleran Ice Sheet, which nucleated in the northern North American Cordillera; the Innuitian ice sheet, which extended across the Canadian Arctic Archipelago; the Greenland ice sheet; and the massive Laurentide Ice Sheet, which covered the high latitudes of central and eastern North America. This advance was synchronous with global glaciation during the last glacial period, including the North American alpine glacier advance, known as the Pinedale glaciation. The Wisconsin glaciation extended from approximately 75,000 to 11,000 years ago, between the Sangamonian Stage and the current interglacial, the Holocene. The maximum ice extent occurred approximately 25,000–21,000 years ago during the last glacial maximum, also known as the Late Wisconsin in North America.
Lake Missoula was a prehistoric proglacial lake in western Montana that existed periodically at the end of the last ice age between 15,000 and 13,000 years ago. The lake measured about 7,770 square kilometres (3,000 sq mi) and contained about 2,100 cubic kilometres (500 cu mi) of water, half the volume of Lake Michigan.
In geology, a proglacial lake is a lake formed either by the damming action of a moraine during the retreat of a melting glacier, a glacial ice dam, or by meltwater trapped against an ice sheet due to isostatic depression of the crust around the ice. At the end of the last ice age about 10,000 years ago, large proglacial lakes were a widespread feature in the northern hemisphere.
The Driftless Area, also known as Bluff Country and the Paleozoic Plateau, is a topographical and cultural region in the Midwestern United States that comprises southwestern Wisconsin, southeastern Minnesota, northeastern Iowa, and the extreme northwestern corner of Illinois. The Driftless Area is a USDA Level III Ecoregion: Ecoregion 52. The Driftless Area takes up a large portion of the Upper Midwest forest–savanna transition. The Blufflands refers to the eastern section of the Driftless area in Minnesota, due to the steep bluffs and cliffs around the river valleys. The western half is known as the Rochester Plateau, which is flatter than the Blufflands. The Coulee Region refers to the southwestern part of the Driftless Area in Wisconsin. It is named for its numerous ravines.
Dry Falls is a 3.5-mile-long (5.6 km) scalloped precipice with four major alcoves, in central Washington scablands. This cataract complex is on the opposite side of the Upper Grand Coulee from the Columbia River, and at the head of the Lower Grand Coulee, northern end of Lenore Canyon. According to the current geological model, catastrophic flooding channeled water at 65 miles per hour through the Upper Grand Coulee and over this 400-foot (120 m) rock face at the end of the last glaciation. It is estimated that the falls were five times the width of Niagara Falls, with ten times the flow of all the current rivers in the world combined.
The Yellow River in north central Wisconsin is a tributary of the Chippewa River. For the most part it is a mud and rock-bottomed river flowing through forest and farmland. It is one of four distinct rivers in the state bearing the name Yellow River.
The Touchet Formation or Touchet beds consist of well-bedded, coarse to fine sand and silt which overlays local bedrock composed of Neogene basalt of the Columbia River Basalt Group in south-central Washington and north-central Oregon. The beds consist of more than 40 to 62 distinct rhythmites – horizontal layers of sediment, each clearly demarcated from the layer below. These Touchet beds are often covered by windblown loess which were deposited later; the number of layers varies with location. The beds vary in thickness from 330 ft (100 m) at lower elevations where a number of layers can be found to a few extremely thin layers at the maximum elevation where they are observed.
Sims Corner Eskers and Kames National Natural Landmark of Douglas County, Washington and nearby McNeil Canyon Haystack Rocks and Boulder Park natural landmarks contain excellent examples of Pleistocene glacial landforms. Sims Corner Eskers and Kames National Natural Landmark includes classic examples of ice stagnation landforms such as glacial erratics, terminal moraines, eskers, and kames. It is located on the Waterville Plateau of the Columbia Plateau in north central Washington state in the United States.
Moses Coulee is a canyon in the Waterville plateau region of Douglas County, Washington. Moses Coulee is the second-largest and westernmost canyon of the Channeled Scablands, located about 30 kilometres (19 mi) to the west of the larger Grand Coulee. This water channel is now dry, but during glacial periods, large outburst floods with discharges greater than 600,000 m3/s (21,000,000 cu ft/s) carved the channel. While it's clear that glacial floodwaters passed through and contributed to the erosion of Moses Coulee, the age of those waters, thus the origins of the coulee are less clear. No clear connection between the head of the coulee and major flood routes to the north, east, or west is known. Some researchers propose that floods from glacial Lake Missoula formed Moses Coulee, while others suggest that subglacial floods from the Okanogan Lobe incised the canyon. The mouth of Moses Coulee discharges into the Columbia River.
The Withrow Moraine and Jameson Lake Drumlin Field is a National Park Service–designated privately owned National Natural Landmark located in Douglas County, Washington state, United States. Withrow Moraine is the only Ice Age terminal moraine on the Waterville Plateau section of the Columbia Plateau. The drumlin field includes excellent examples of glacially-formed elongated hills.
Floods in the United States before 1900 is a list of flood events that were of significant impact to the country, before 1900. Floods are generally caused by excessive rainfall, excessive snowmelt, and dam failure.
Wisconsin, a state in the Midwestern United States, has a vast and diverse geography famous for its landforms created by glaciers during the Wisconsin glaciation 17,000 years ago. The state can be generally divided into five geographic regions—Lake Superior Lowland, Northern Highland, Central Plain, Eastern Ridges & Lowlands, and Western Upland. The southwestern part of the state, which was not covered by glaciers during the most recent ice age, is known as the Driftless Area. The Wisconsin glaciation formed the Wisconsin Dells, Devil's Lake, and the Baraboo Range. A number of areas are protected in the state, including Devil's Lake State Park, the Apostle Islands National Lakeshore, and the Chequamegon–Nicolet National Forest.
Lake Condon was a temporary lake in the Pacific Northwest region of North America, formed periodically by the Missoula Floods from 15,000 to 13,000 BC. It was named after Oregon geologist Thomas Condon.
Lake Great Falls was a prehistoric proglacial lake which existed in what is now central Montana in the United States between 15,000 BCE and 11,000 BCE. Centered on the modern city of Great Falls, Montana, Glacial Lake Great Falls extended as far north as Cut Bank, Montana, and as far south as Holter Lake. At present-day Great Falls, the Glacial Lake Great Falls reached a depth of 600 feet.
The Kankakee Torrent was a catastrophic flood that occurred about 19,000 calibrated years ago in the Midwestern United States. It resulted from a breach of moraines forming a large glacial lake fed by the melting of the Late Wisconsin Laurentide Ice Sheet. The point of origin of the flood was Lake Chicago. The landscape south of Chicago still shows the effects of the torrent, particularly at Kankakee River State Park and on the Illinois River at Starved Rock State Park.
The Mondeaux Dam Recreation Area is a public park in the forest in the town of Westboro, Wisconsin, United States. The Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) and Work Projects Administration (WPA) created the lake and facilities during the Great Depression.
