Our chapter will be represented at the new International Headquarters of the Ice Age Park & Trail Foundation in Cross Plains by a gorgeous chunk of Flambeau Ridge Quartzite. Cal Kraemer arranged with landowners Brian & Shawna Strzok of Holcombe to donate the beautiful piece of our county.
The specific rock type was suggested by Kent Syverson, UWEC geologist. Flambeau Ridge Quartzite differs from Blue Hills or Devils Lake varieties by its white banding. The Flambeau Ridge is the most obvious topographic feature in northern Chippewa County, and in many ways defined the look of the Ice Age in Chippewa County, especially in the Chippewa Moraine area, by slowing down and directing the glacial flow.
Here's how Syverson explains it in Pleistocene Geology of Chippewa County, WIsconsin, Wisconsin Geological and Natural History Survey Buletin 103, 2007:
"The widest, highest-relief part of the Chippewa moraine is southwest (directly downflow) of Flambeau Ridge, a 150 m high Precambrian quartzite ridge. This area also coincides with the thickest glacial sediment in the county (greater than 60 m) ...
"Flambeau Ridge formed a prominent obstacle to ice flow that slowed the ice, enhanced compressive ice flow and the transportation of sediment into the ice, and eventually resulted in thicker than normal sediment accumulations on the ice surface.
"As Flambeau Ridge emerged from the thinning ice, large-scale ice stagnation occurred in the Chippewa moraine region downflow from the obstruction. The thick sediment insulated the underlying ice, and eventually the active Chippewa Lobe separated from the stagnant ice mass southwest of Flambeau Ridge."
Special thanks to Cal Kraemer for identifying and finding the rock, arranging the donation, and transporting it.