Lake Minong was a proglacial lake that formed in the

Lake Superior Lake Superior in central North America is the largest freshwater lake in the world by surface areaThe Caspian Sea is the largest lake, but is saline, not freshwater. and the third-largest by volume, holding 10% of the world's surface fresh wa ...

basin during the

Wisconsin glaciation 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 Cord ...

around 10,000 B.P. This was the last glacial advance that entered Michigan and covered only part of the upper peninsula. Lake Minong occurred in the eastern corner of the Lake Superior basin while Lake Duluth was in the western end. The lakes became separated when the glacier reached the upper peninsula. Lake Minong expanded to the north as the ice retreated after 9,800 B.P. When the ice retreated from the Keweenaw Peninsula, Lake Duluth merged into Lake Minong."Post-Valders Lake Stages in the Lake Superior Basin", in Glacial and Postglacial Geologic History of Isle Royale National Park, Michigan by N. King Huber, USGS Geological Survey Professional Paper 754-A

Chronology

*11,400 B.P. Lake Minong covered only Whitefish Bay with the Laurentian glacial mass lying across the central Lake Superior basin.A late Lake Minong transgression in the Lake Superior basin as documented by sediments from Fenton Lake, Ontario; Andy Breckenridge, Thomas V. Lowell, Timothy G. Fisher, & Shiyong Yu; Springer Science+Business Media B.V. 2010 Lake Duluth existed in the lowlands of St. Louis Bay and Spirit Lake on the St. Louis River. *10,600 B.P. The glacial ice had receded northward, opening a link between the eastern and western basins of Lake Superior. *9,500 B.P. Lake Minong expands to cover the entire lake basin as the glacial front moves northward from the basin. At this time, Lake Minong is an intermediary basin with waters from

Lake Agassiz Lake Agassiz was a large glacial lake in central North America. Fed by glacial meltwater at the end of the last glacial period, its area was larger than all of the modern Great Lakes combined. First postulated in 1823 by William H. Keating, i ...

flowing in through the

Nipigon River The Nipigon River is located in Thunder Bay District in Northwestern Ontario, Canada. The river is about long (or when measured to the head of Ombabika River) and , and flows from Lake Nipigon to Nipigon Bay on Lake Superior at the community of ...

valley and further east through the Aquasabong valley. *8,500 B.P. Lake Superior forms as the Lake Agassiz basin joins with the

Lake Ojibway Lake Ojibway was a prehistoric lake in what is now northern Ontario and Quebec in Canada. Ojibway was the last of the great proglacial lakes of the last ice age. Comparable in size to Lake Agassiz (to which it was likely linked), and north of the ...

, shifting its drainage into the headwaters of the Ottawa River. The Lake Superior basin becomes the headwaters of the Great Lakes system.

References

External links

"Post-Valders Lake Stages in the Lake Superior Basin"
i

by N. King Huber, USGS Geological Survey Professional Paper 754-A Former lakes of North America Geology of Wisconsin Geology of Minnesota Geology of Michigan Proglacial lakes Glacial lakes of the United States Glacial lakes of Canada {{US-geology-stub

Chronology

See also

References

External links