Key speakers

We were pleased to feature several key speakers at this year’s conference. We will post additional details as they become available this fall.

Nelson Ham

Professor, St. Norbert College

Wisconsin’s wetlands in geologic time: How the last ice age shaped our wetland landscapes

It’s long been known that the Wisconsin Glaciation played a prominent role in shaping Wisconsin’s wetlands’ landscapes, with important implications for wetland delineation, hydrology, ecology, and restoration.  However, recent advances in geologic mapping, dating methods, and remote sensing have dramatically increased our knowledge of the last glaciation in Wisconsin and our understanding of the specific relationships between glacial landforms and wetlands.  The Laurentide Ice Sheet covered much of northern and eastern Wisconsin between about 15,000 and 30,000 years ago and greatly modified the pre-glacial landscape.  While the pattern of glacial landforms is generally the same across much of the region, important differences influenced the style of wetlands that formed in any one area.  For example, high-relief, sandy moraines in northern Wisconsin allowed for the development of deep kettle bogs.  In contrast, low relief, silty-clayey moraines in eastern Wisconsin encouraged the formation of shallow wetlands similar to the famous prairie-pothole region of the Great Plains.  Wisconsin’s glacial deposits even preserve evidence of “fossil” wetlands that were buried by late advances of the ice sheet.  This presentation will explore the relationship between glacial history, landforms, deposits, and wetlands across Wisconsin.