Wisconsin Rocks!

A Guide to Geologic Sites in the Badger State Scott Spoolman In the early 1800s, fortune-seeking miners in Wisconsin’s lead district dug thousands of pits, earning the nickname “badgers” because their excavations resembled the holes dug by the burrowing mammal. Early settlers sought out other natural resources as well, with limestone quarried from the Niagara Escarpment along Lake Michigan, iron mined in the Penokee Range, and copper discovered in glacial deposits, eroded from Midcontinental Rift basalts near Lake Superior. Not only is Wisconsin’s geology some of the most diverse of any state in the country, but much of it is internationally famous. Within the state’s borders are enormous potholes eroded by glacial floods, a mysterious meteor impact site, caves with flowstone “painted” by iron and manganese oxides, and Van Hise Rock in the Baraboo Hills, where principles of structural geology were established. Author Scott Spoolman has picked 52 of the best geologic sites in the state