WorldWide Drilling Resource

Alaska Miners Association Phone: 907-563-9229 Fax: 907-563-9225 ama@alaskaminers.org www.alaskaminers.org American Exploration and Mining Assn. Phone: 509-624-1158 Fax: 509-623-1241 info@miningamerica.org www.miningamerica.org WorldWide Drilling Resource ® is proud to be a member of these mining associations. Women in Mining 866-537-9694 wim@womeninmining.org www.womeninmining.org 53 WorldWide Drilling Resource ® APRIL 2015 Glacial Lake Agassiz by Harry W. Short Engineering Geologist I realized after my 2014 trip to Salt Lake, Utah, and seeing the ancient Lake Bonneville, I had grown up in a post-glacial lake area at my hometown in Grand Forks, North Dakota. Dr. Louis Agassiz (1807-1873) studied glaciation in many areas of the world before immi- grating toAmerica in1846, and becoming a professor in1847 at Harvard University. The lake was named by Warren Upham in honor of Dr. Agassiz in 1879. Lake Agassiz formed an immense body of water, located in central North America and was fed by glacial melt- water at the end of the Pleistocene Epoch (Wisconsin Stage) 1,600,000 to 10,000 years ago. The lake’s area was larger than all of the modern Great Lakes com- bined, though its mean depth was not as great as many major lakes today. The weight of the glacial ice de- pressed the ground surface, thus the Red River of the north flows northerly towards Winnipeg, Canada. During the flood season, tremendous quantities of water flows through the ancient lake bed from several rivers that discharge into the Red River. The Canadians built a massive dike sys- tem to keep flood- waters out of Lake Winnipeg and north- ern Canada. The structure was re- moved i n r ecen t time. These r i ve r s carried heavy loads of sediment into the Red River, and the water appeared to be thick enough to walk on. I remem- be r t he f a rme r s say i ng t he “Red River was too thick to drink and too thin to plow.” However, t h e l o c a l wa t e r t r ea tmen t p l an t was able to pro- duce quality drink- ing water from the river. The Agassiz Lake sed imen t s proved a premium soil for growing farm crops such as sugar beets, corn, hay, and various grain, and are the main asset in the local economy. Lake Agassiz is elongated in shape and is 258 miles from north to south with remote sandy beaches, large lime- stone cliffs, and bat caves in some areas. The width of the lake ranged from 20 to 60 miles with a surface area of 9465 square miles, and has a maximum depth 118 feet. The lake once covered parts of Manitoba, Ontario, and Saskatchewan in Canada; and also North Dakota and Minnesota in the United States. Harry Harry Short may be contacted via e-mail at michele@ worldwidedrillingresource.com Red River flood inundated the local dam in 1950.