Glaciers, Golf, and God

This past weekend the US Open Golf Championship was, for the first time, played in the state of Wisconsin. Played at a young course, only eleven years old, the designers retained much of the natural topography rather than undertake significant grading. The landscape of the course has been described as a rumpled quilt. Many who first saw the site, claimed how it would make a great venue for golf. Golf is an old sport, first played in Scotland, but the land forms of the course go back 10,000 years to the time of the last glacier, known as the Wisconsin glaciation. This post will be about the the geography of the region, both physical and cultural.

Brooks Koepka, Winner 2017 US Open at Erin Hills Golf Course

If you were to take a time machine back 22,000 years and fly a drone (how is that for 21st century) over what we know today as the state of Wisconsin one would see a landscape in transformation. What leads to a glacier is rather simple, it is when snow and ice accumulates faster than it melts. The last of  a series of glaciers is known in as either the Wisconsin glaciation, or the Wurm (Germany) glaciation. It was named for Wisconsin as the state was the epicenter of various forms of this massive movement of ice and snow. Watching your tablet as your drone flies above Wisconsin, you would notice an area in the southwest corner of the state that lacked the ice and snow covering of the rest of the state. Known as the drift-less area, this landscape is most easily identified by the ridges and v-shaped valleys which represent a clear sign of unglaciated territory. The last massive movement of ice (Wisconsin glacier) had less reach than prior glaciers. Therefore more land has been affected by glaciation than that what you will see on your drone flight. As you fly the drone to the northeast corner of the drift-less area, and view the live-stream video on your I-pad (hopefully you had it fully charged before you departed, because there are no electric outlets in 20,000 BC), you come across the flat central plains, an area where a large glacial lake is forming due to the melting ice and snow. Glaciers can affect land forms by the massive amount of meltwater that is produced.  In fact, sea levels were probably over 300 feet less than present, but the ice would also have weighted down the land.

Wisconsin Glacial Deposits

Besides the glacial lakes other unique land forms are formed by glaciation. Best known are moraines in which are debris is dropped off as the glacier melts. There are both terminal and recessional moraines. What is unique about Erin Hills golf course, is that it was formed between two lobes of the Wisconsin glacier, and hence it is part of a moraine formed between two lobes of the glacier, which is a type of recessional moraine. Recessional moraines occur during glacial retreat from its greatest extent.  Not unlike drumlins moraines lack differentiation of debris deposition.  One of the largest drumlin fields in the world lies between Sun Prairie and Beaver Dam. These land forms occur under the mass of ice and snow that make up the glacier. The oval shape of the hills tell the direction of the glacier and while formed under the mass of ice, the glacier dropped debris, likely after hitting some type of large object. They are not formed by meltwater as meltwater would stratify the debris. An esker, a sinewy landscape feature formed by meltwater, contains sands and gravel stratified by the meltwater—materials important for construction. A lesser known type of glacial feature is the kame. Like an esker it is formed by meltwater, but rather than being a curved ridge, it is best seen as a cone shaped mound. It is this feature, that provides the height to the iconic building given several shout-outs during the US Open telecast.

Lobes of the Wisconsin Glacier

Sitting on a kame Holy Hill is home to a Catholic Basilica and with its twin spires, provides a commanding view from the surrounding countryside. The building, which sits over three miles east of the golf course, is visible from 13 of the 18 holes at Erin Hills. The final hole was purposely aligned to view this iconic structure as the golfer looked and walked to the green. Golf is known as a game that can produce from a player a range of emotions, and of course the occasional swear word.  Depending upon how your round of golf went, it is either a foreboding or a welcoming view.  From a geologic standpoint, Holy Hill is important for another reason--as a glacial kame it sits on top of another geologic feature--the Niagara Escarpment.  Together both natural features provide its height.

Glacial features

Running in an arc from Niagara Falls, to southeast Wisconsin the Niagara Escarpment is a cuesta feature that is sometimes termed a natural wonder of Wisconsin, but the physical nature of the area informed the cultural landscape of Wisconsin. It is perhaps best noticed along the east side of Lake Winnebago, particularly in High Cliff State Park. An escarpment has a steep face (hence High Cliff) on one side and a more gradual face on the other. It is not created by fault or fold, but by the natural layering and weathering of varied rock layers. Besides it being the defining feature of Door County, for without the escarpment the peninsula would not exist, it provided raw materials of lime for concrete and to this day the limestone from this area is a preferred building material. When constructing the Basilica on Holy Hill, they located some limestone to use in the construction of the building foundation to avoid having to haul bricks for the foundation.

Holy Hill from the 18th hole at Erin Hills

Pilgrimages are important in certain religious traditions. Sometimes in life, it is about the journey. Location of religious rituals on a high point is part of biblical history.  Moses went to the mountain to obtain the ten commandments.  The location, and steeples of the Shrine at Holy Hill attest to a human desire to reach the heavens. Jesus often went to mounds or mountains to preach, or to pray.  Evidence from archaeological excavations in the area of High Cliff State Park suggest that religious rituals were performed on the escarpment by Paleo-Indian inhabitants. Belief in an afterlife led to the pyramids, and other wonders of the world.

Holy Hill in the fall

Today, a large 650 acre golf course has replaced pasture land and a few homes. The landscape formed, or reformed by the glaciers of time long gone, is changing once again, although now more by man than by nature. It changed to less extent by the Native Americans, it changed more as kilns and stone quarries, or gravel pits opened, the land tilled, and roads and buildings were constructed. It changed when the top of Holy Hill was leveled to accommodate the Basilica. It has changed as subdivisions and high-end rural homes have been built on land that was once oak openings farms and
woods. Our cultural heritage is formed by our natural landscape, just as the Erin Hills golf course used the land forms created by the glacier to produce a course suitable for the US Open. And, just as high points are used to reach to the heavens, whether it be the Paleo-Indians or the German and Irish Catholics who built a Basilica on Holy Hill reaching toward a merciful God.

Images from Google