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User:IveGoneAway/sandbox/Kaw Lake (proglacial lake)

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Kaw Lake refers to a proglacial lake that formed during the Pleistocene when glaciers dammed the Kansas River, the river itself nicknamed "The Kaw". A number of landforms record the influence of the lake, the glacier, and the glacier's outflow;

Exploration

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Approaching the Kansas River crossing at Cross Creek from the northeast, the 1724 Bourgmont Expedition to the Padouca described "reddish, marbled" boulders protruding above the short buffalo grass, making the first recorded description of the glaciated terrain along that segment of the Kansas River.[1][2]

Within the remainder of the 18th century, the Kansa people relocated from their previous main settlement on the Missouri river to the middle and upper Kansa River. With the center of the population in the vicinity of Buffalo Mound, a sacred landmark in the midst of the migrant Sioux Quartzite boulder field, the community developed a spiritual connection to the stones that modern science would classify as glacial erratics.

Further reading

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  • 1892: Robert Hay. "Some Characteristics of the Glaciated Area of North-Eastern Kansas" (PDF). Transactions of the Kansas Academy of Science. Vol. 13 (1891 - 1892). Kansas Academy of Science: 104–106. Retrieved 2023-04-23. {{cite journal}}: |volume= has extra text (help)
Hay described the glaciated area.
Smyth named the proglacial lake formed from the dammed Kansas River.
"Small icebergs floating in these waters account for an occasional boulder and a little drift material south of the moraine."

References

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  1. ^ "1724 Journal Entries for Éttienne de Veniard, sieur de Bourgmont" (PDF). nebraskastudies.org. History Nebraska. p. 2. Along the streams we find also pieces of slate, and on the prairie some reddish, marbled stones that protrude one, two, and three feet out of the ground. Some are more than six feet in diameter.
    French historians believe the journal was written by mining engineer Philippe de La Renaudière.
  2. ^ Rex C. Buchanan; James R. McCauley (1987). Roadside Kansas. University Press of Kansas (Kansas Geological Survey). p. 115–116. ISBN 978-0-7006-0322-0. Interstate 70 327.5 ... Early explorers often commented on these glacial erratics. In fact one of the first recorded references to Kansas geology came from the Frenchman Étienne Veniard de Bourgmont, ... In his description of the reddish marble, the explorer was almost certainly referring to the quartzite glacial erratics.