« Sacred Cow | Main | Getting There »

What On Earth?

image copyright Fred First
I'm having this little brain spasm in which I am imagining giving my biology students a Google Earth scavenger hunt. Details, TBA. But one of the places we may hunt for, or I may direct them (when I find out for sure my hunch is correct regarding the nature of this point here. (Click on it if you have Google Earth installed and it will let you see exactly what I'm seeing.)

Looking at the gazeteer for Minnesota, this landform is in Koochiching County in the last tier of counties this side of Canada. Given this area was the site of heavy glaciation and glacial lakes abound, I'm wondering if these odd smears of flowing land (which in total are dominant over several hundred square miles both in Mn and southern Canada) are bogs--partially-filled-in glacially-scoured depressions dominated by sphagnum moss. These areas are often farmed for such things as sugar beets and cranberries. I wonder: what accounts for the blue and other non-green colors in this odd land?

Does anybody have any experience from northern Minnesota to shed some light on this earthly mystery?

Posted by fred1st on July 24, 2005 9:28 AM |

TrackBack

TrackBack URL for this entry:
http://www.fragmentsfromfloyd.com/scripts/mt-tb.cgi/1949

Comments

They are, at least in part, bogs, I think. There's a National Park headquartered just outside International Falls that encompasses quite a bit of bog - and shallow lakes. And deep lakes. I understand it's good canoeing.

Here's a link to the National Park: http://www.voyageurs.national-park.com/

Posted by: Teri | July 24, 2005 6:40 PM

Post a comment

(If you haven't left a comment here before, you may need to be approved by the site owner before your comment will appear. Until then, it won't appear on the entry. Thanks for waiting.)