A unique feature of the continental glaciated surface of North America is the so-called Driftless Areas, of southern Wisconsin, northwestern Illinois and adjacent Iowa (described by Whitney, 1862, but first explained by Irving, 1878). N. H. Winchell (1873, p. 61) wrote “the rocks stand out prominently in bluffs and terraces caused by their various capacities to withstand the elements, covered with very little besides the decomposed debris of their own beds” (i.e., a periglacial texture). The area is locally cloaked by loess. This relief, free from the usual cover of drift, is a result of the lobate character of the successive ice advances and the fact that each glacial phase was marked by different areas of maximum advance. In the continental basement, there is an ancient Precambrian ridge that runs from the center of the Canadian Shield southwestward across Lake Superior to the southern Rocky Mts.; in Wisconsin and northwestern Illinois, it still forms a slight topographic rise. The...
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References
Black, R. F., 1960, ‘Driftless Area’ of Wisconsin was glaciated, Bull. Geol. Soc. Am., 71(12), Pt. 2, 1827 (abstract).
Flint, R. F., 1957, Glacial and Pleistocene Geology, New York, John Wiley & Sons, 553pp.
Irving, R. D., 1878, Origin of the Driftless Area of the northwest, Am. J. Sci., 115, 313 314.
Thwaites, F. T., 1935, Outline of Glacial Geology, Ann Arbor, Edwards Bros., 115pp.
Whitney, J. D., 1862, Report of the Geological Survey of the State of Wisconsin, Vol. 1, Albany, N.Y., 455pp.
Winchell, H. V., 1873, The Geological and Natural History Survey of Minnesota, Saint Paul.
Cross-references
Drift; Glacial Geology; Lobes, Lobation; Loess; Periglacial Landscape.
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Fairbridge, R.W. (1968). Driftless area . In: Geomorphology. Encyclopedia of Earth Science. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/3-540-31060-6_98
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