Wisconsin Forums

[AJE]

Lots of ice…

Lets travel back through time…in a world once covered with ice 2 miles thick. It was a place totally different from today’s climate. In 2002, 20th Century Fox gave the viewers a whole new outlook to this period in Earths natural history known as the Pleistocene in the animated movie called “Ice Age”. This is an excellent movie to give us perspectives of a world covered by colossal ice shelves, volcanoes, nomadic primitive man and of course the migration of Pleistocene mammals. Now I supposed you’re wondering why I bring up this movie as a introduction. The answer is it’s not just funny but also informative.

Some 2 million years ago our climate cooled to the point that we fell into perminate interglacial period that we have dubbed The Ice Age. These change of events had a profound impact on our landscape. A lot of folks don’t realize Wisconsin is one of the best places to see and photograph glacial topography in the world thanks to the Pleistocene Epoch. Then 10-12,000 years ago after the last ice shelves named after our state scoured our landscape the climate warmed, glaciers began to retreat or melt back. In their wake, they left an impressive glacial landscape of fascinating topography. Some landforms features you’ll recognize are moraines, drumlins, kames, kettles (remnants are bogs), eskers, outwash plains, erratics, meltwater channels, potholes, driftless (unglaciated) topography, glacial lakebeds and islands, and more.

Today, The Ice Age National Scenic Trail helps preserve this delicate beauty and educate us on our state’s natural history. It leads to places close to our homes; as well as to remote parts of Wisconsin.

In conclusion I would like to end again with a quotation from one of the animals during the “Great Migration” scene of the “Ice Age” Movie.

“Well, why don't they call it The Big Chill? Or The Nippy Era? I'm just sayin', how do we know it's an Ice Age? ”?’ The answer comes, “Because of all the ice!

”
:wink:
http://www.iceagemovie.com/
http://www.iceagetrail.org/
http://www2.nature.nps.gov/geology/parks/icag/index.cfm