Valparaiso Moraine

The Valparaiso Moraine is a terminal moraine around the Lake Michigan basin in North America. It is a series of hills made up of glacial till and sand that reaches an elevation of 200 feet above Lake Michigan at its maximum height and 15 miles wide at its maximum width. It was formed during the Crown Point Phase of the Wisconsin Glaciation. At this time the glacier covering the area had grown thin, so it was restrained by the dolomite rock layers of the Lake Michigan basin. Where the glacier stopped, glacial till piled up, creating the hills of the moraine. After the Valparaiso Moraine was formed, the glacier retreated and formed the Tinley Moraine.

Many towns in northwest Indiana and northeast Illinois are named after the Valparaiso Moraine or the Tinley Moraine. Also, many small creeks or rivers start in the Valparaiso Moraine. The moraine itself was named after the city of Valparaiso, Indiana where the moraine is narrower and higher than in other places.

The Valparaiso Moraine forms part of the St. Lawrence Seaway Divide and the Great Lakes Drainage Basin. Water on one side of the moraine flows into Lake Michigan, of the Great Lakes and eventually into the Atlantic Ocean, and water on the other side flows into the Kankakee River which flows into the Mississippi River, which eventually flows into the Gulf of Mexico.

See also

*Kankakee Outwash Plain
*Calumet Shoreline
*Glenwood Shoreline
*Terminal moraine
*Geography of Indiana

References

*Schoon, Kenneth J., "Calumet Beginnings", 2003, Indiana University Press p. 20-22 ISBN 025334218X