Regional Landscape Ecosystems of Michigan, Minnesota, and Wisconsin
SUB-SUBSECTION IX.4.2. Rib Mountain
DISCUSSION: The topography is steeper here than in the remainder of the subsection, with few wetlands. Bedrock exposures are common.
ELEVATION: 1,115 to 1,924 feet (340 to 586 m).
AREA: 1,023 square miles (2,650 sq km).
STATES: Wisconsin.
CLIMATE: See subsection.
BEDROCK GEOLOGY: Underlain by Precambrian granitic rock (Morey 1982). Rib Mountain is quartzite.
LANDFORMS: This sub-subsection is the most dissected part of a 25,000- to 790,000-year-old, pre-Wisconsinan till plain underlain by granitic bedrock (Clayton et al. 1991).
LAKES AND STREAMS: No natural lakes. Rivers include the Big Rib, Little Rib, Trappe, and Wisconsin. Many of these rivers have eroded steep ravines into the glacial drift, and there are bedrock exposures along their streams.
SOILS: Soils are well-drained, shallow silt loams over weathered granitic bedrock. Till forms a thin, discontinuous veneer over clayey saprolite developed on granitic and metavolcanic rocks (Farrand et al. 1984). Soils are classified as Glossoboralfs and Hapludalfs (Hole 1976).
PRESETTLEMENT VEGETATION: Most of this sub-subsection was dominated by northern hardwood forests of hemlock, sugar maple, yellow birch, white pine and red pine (Finley 1976); but there were also forests of white pine and red pine as well as jack pine barrens along the broad alluvial deposits of the Wisconsin River.
NATURAL DISTURBANCE: Windthrow was much less common here than in either Sub-subsections IX.4.1 or IX.4.3.
PRESENT VEGETATION AND LAND USE: Much of this sub-subsection remains forested.
RARE PLANT COMMUNITIES: None identified to date.
RARE PLANTS: None identified to date.
RARE ANIMALS: None identified to date.
NATURAL AREAS: State Natural Areas: Dells of the Eau Claire River, Powers Bluff Maple Woods, Big Eau Pleine Woods.
PUBLIC LAND MANAGERS:
CONSERVATION CONCERNS:
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