| A History of STRUM and the TOWN OF UNITY by Roy Matson |
| THIS IS PAGE 1 | TABLE OF CONTENTS | PAGE BACK | PAGE FORWARD |
| A Bit of Geology We in the Beef River Valley live in the so called driftless area, the part of Wisconsin untouched by several glacial advances, the last of which remade the face of this state some 10,000 years ago. These masses of snow turned to ice, formed somewhere above Hudson Bay. With proper temperatures and climate prevailing for thousands of years, continual heavy snows resulted in an ice buildup that scientists estimate to have been nearly two miles thick. The immense weight caused a movement outward and as additional snow and ice built up this outward action continued, leveling and carrying everything in its path. Snow now covers about 10% of the earth’s surface. Scientists estimate that cover during the glacial age was about 30%, and so much water was ice that the oceans were about 330 feet lower than today. The earth’s water today is agreed to be about 97% ocean water, 2% ice and 1% river, lake, creek and underground supply. Release of the water held in ice caps at this time would raise sea levels 180 to 200 feet. There were four such advances that touched our state during various ice ages, all in forms of tongues that moved in several directions. The time required for the build-up, total movement and melting of such a tongue of 10,000 feet thickness or more is supposed to be around 130,000 years. How is all this known? This tremendous weight carried rock, stone and silt as the glacier was forced to move. Then it left scratches on bed rock, formed deposits of earth in forms that marked direction and tore up beds of hard material and left parts of these beds hundreds of miles from the original site. The only spot in our state left untouched was the driftless area of which our river valley is part of the northern boundary. This area CLICK for Map of Beef River: Original and Present Course (may be slow to load) |