Lake Chippewa was a prehistoric proglacial lake. The basin is now

Lake Michigan Lake Michigan is one of the five Great Lakes of North America. It is the second-largest of the Great Lakes by volume () and the third-largest by surface area (), after Lake Superior and Lake Huron. To the east, its basin is conjoined with that o ...

. It formed about 10,600 years

before present Before Present (BP) years, or "years before present", is a time scale used mainly in archaeology, geology and other scientific disciplines to specify when events occurred relative to the origin of practical radiocarbon dating in the 1950s. Becaus ...

(YBP). The lake occupied the depression left by the Michigan Lobe of the

Laurentide Ice Sheet The Laurentide Ice Sheet was a massive sheet of ice that covered millions of square miles, including most of Canada and a large portion of the Northern United States, multiple times during the Quaternary glacial epochs, from 2.58 million years a ...

.University of Wisconsin, Green Bay, Dept of Geology

Origin

The lake formed from glacial

Lake Algonquin Lake Algonquin was a prehistoric proglacial lake that existed in east-central North America at the time of the last ice age. Parts of the former lake are now Lake Huron, Georgian Bay, Lake Superior, Lake Michigan, Lake Nipigon, and Lake Nipissing ...

as water levels dropped, occupying only the deepest parts of the

basin. The waters drained through the

Straits of Mackinac The Straits of Mackinac ( ; french: Détroit de Mackinac) are the short waterways between the U.S. state of Michigan's Upper and Lower Peninsulas, traversed by the Mackinac Bridge. The main strait is wide with a maximum depth of , and connects ...

, then across

Lake Stanley Lake Stanley, also called the ''Stanley unconformity'', is a postglacial freshwater lake that occupied part of what is now the basin of Lake Huron during a hydrologically significant period from 10,000 years Before Present (B.P.). The lake’s s ...

into either

Lake Hough A lake is an area filled with water, localized in a basin, surrounded by land, and distinct from any river or other outlet that serves to feed or drain the lake. Lakes lie on land and are not part of the ocean, although, like the much larger ...

and then to the

St. Lawrence River The St. Lawrence River (french: Fleuve Saint-Laurent, ) is a large river in the middle latitudes of North America. Its headwaters begin flowing from Lake Ontario in a (roughly) northeasterly direction, into the Gulf of St. Lawrence, connecting ...

by way of the

Ottawa River The Ottawa River (french: Rivière des Outaouais, Algonquin: ''Kichi-Sìbì/Kitchissippi'') is a river in the Canadian provinces of Ontario and Quebec. It is named after the Algonquin word 'to trade', as it was the major trade route of Eastern ...

valley, or through the St. Clair and

Detroit Detroit ( , ; , ) is the largest city in the U.S. state of Michigan. It is also the largest U.S. city on the United States–Canada border, and the seat of government of Wayne County. The City of Detroit had a population of 639,111 at th ...

rivers to an

Early Lake Erie Early Lake Erie was a prehistoric proglacial lake that existed at the end of the last ice age approximately 13,000 years ago. The early Erie fed waters to Glacial Lake Iroquois. The ancient lake was similar in size to the current lake during glaci ...

and out the

Niagara River The Niagara River () is a river that flows north from Lake Erie to Lake Ontario. It forms part of the border between the province of Ontario in Canada (on the west) and the state of New York (state), New York in the United States (on the east) ...

towards the St. Lawrence. Around 10,300 YBP, Lake Chippewa’s levels continued to drop, and the basin was a self-contained body of water without an outlet. Levels returned and Lake Chippewa again flowed through the canyon at Mackinac until around 7,500 YBP. At that time, the

Nipissing Great Lakes Nipissing Great Lakes was a prehistoric proglacial lake. Parts of the former lake are now Lake Superior, Lake Huron, Georgian Bay and Lake Michigan. It formed about 7,500 years before present (YBP). The lake occupied the depression left by the L ...

merged with the waters in the Michigan Basin and created a single lake encompassing all three of the upper

Great Lakes The Great Lakes, also called the Great Lakes of North America, are a series of large interconnected freshwater lakes in the mid-east region of North America that connect to the Atlantic Ocean via the Saint Lawrence River. There are five lakes ...

Size

Somewhat smaller than Lake Michigan, Lake Chippewa extended through the most of the Michigan Basin, north to the Straits of Mackinac, where there was a narrow channel which conveyed the lake's outflow over the now submerged Mackinac Falls to

. Its shoreline ranged from out from the present day Lake Michigan shore.

References

External links

* {{cite map , publisher= Randall Schaetzl, Michigan State University , title= Glacial Lakes Chippewa and Stanley , url= http://geo.msu.edu/extra/geogmich/chippewa.html, edition= , section= , accessdate= January 27, 2020 Moraines of the United States Geological history of the Great Lakes Geology of Illinois Geology of Michigan Geology of Wisconsin

Origin

Size

See also

References

External links