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SUB-SUBSECTIONS: None.

ELEVATION: 670 to 1,970 feet (204 to 600 m).

AREA: 2,065 square miles (5,353 sq km).

STATES: Michigan and Wisconsin.

CLIMATE: Intermediate between the lake-moderated Subsection VIII.3 and more continental Subsection IX.3. Average annual precipitation is 28 to 32 inches. Annual snowfall is 52 to 80 inches; snowfall is approximately 70 to 80 inches north of the Wisconsin/Michigan boundary, less than 70 inches south of the boundary, and continuously decreasing to the south (Wendland et al. 1992, Eichenlaub et al. 1990, Wisconsin Statistical Reporting Service 1967). Growing season ranges from 100 to 130 days, increasing to the east closer to Lake Michigan. Extreme minimum temperature ranges from -35½F to -45½F.

BEDROCK GEOLOGY: Although much of the subsection is blanketed with outwash sands and till, there are many exposed bedrock knobs of Precambrian bedrock. In Wisconsin, these are primarily basalts and rhyolites, but also granites (Ostrom 1981); in Michigan they are granite and quartzite knobs, including iron-bearing rocks of the Vulcan Formation of the Menominee Range (Dorr and Eschman 1984, Cannon 1986). Other bedrock types include slate, metagraywacke, greenstone, and amphibolite (Morey et al. 1982).

LANDFORMS: Bedrock knobs surrounded by extensive outwash plains. Some of the outwash plains are pitted, containing many ice-block depressions, which frequently contain wetlands. Steep end-moraine ridges are common along the Michigan side of the Menominee River, and inclusions of sandy ground moraine and end moraine are in both Wisconsin and Michigan.

Steep, rounded bedrock knobs rise 200 feet or more from the surrounding outwash plain and smaller ground-moraine hills. The elevation of the ridges increases to the south, from 1,530 feet in southern Michigan to 1,970 feet at the southern edge of the subsection in Wisconsin. In Michigan, many of the ridges are sand capped, but both the shape of the ridges and localized bedrock outcrops indicate that all the ridges have bedrock cores.

The outwash plains of the subsection are extensive, especially along the Menominee River.

LAKES AND STREAMS: Many kettle lakes within the pitted outwash plains, both in Michigan and Wisconsin. Large rivers flowing across the outwash include the Paint, Michigamme, Brule, and Menominee.

SOILS: Droughty outwash sands, thin sandy soils on bedrock, sandy loams and loamy sands on ground moraine and end moraine. The plains are excessively well drained in most areas. Depressions in the outwash contain peat deposits.

PRESETTLEMENT VEGETATION: The excessively well drained outwash plains supported jack pine and northern pin oak barrens. Depressions in the outwash contained either depauperate bog-like wetlands or wet meadows. Bedrock knobs and thin soils supported red pine, white pine, jack pine, bigtooth aspen, and red oak. Where the knobs are covered with sandy till, northern hardwoods with white pine dominated.

NATURAL DISTURBANCE: Fires common on outwash plains and bedrock knobs (Finley 1976).

PRESENT VEGETATION AND LAND USE: Iron was mined within the subsection, but all the mines have now been abandoned. The pineries were logged at the turn of the century, and jack pine, aspen, and paper birch are presently harvested for pulp.

Aspen and paper birch presently dominate many of the sites originally dominated by red pine and white pine. Jack pine remains dominant on the outwash plains.

RARE PLANT COMMUNITIES: Several large jack pine barrens, concentrated near the Menominee River.

RARE PLANTS: Michigan only: Asclepias ovalifolia (dwarf milkweed), Camptosorus rhizophyllus (walking fern), Cystopteris laurentiana (Laurentian fragile fern), Pellaea atropurpurea (purple cliff-brake), Woodsia obtusa (blunt-lobed woodsia). Michigan and Wisconsin: Amerorchis rotundifolia (round-leaved orchis), Arabis missouriensis var. deamii (Missouri rock cress), Cypripedium arietinum (ram's head lady's-slipper), Dryopteris expansa (expanded woodfern), Vaccinium cespitosum (dwarf bilberry). Wisconsin only: Carex backii (Rocky Mountain sedge), Carex gynocrates (northern bog sedge).

RARE ANIMALS: Michigan and Wisconsin: Erebia discoidalis (red disked alpine), Lycaeides idas nabokovi (northern blue butterfly).

NATURAL AREAS: Michigan: State Natural Areas: Shakey Lakes Barrens (proposed); Michigan Nature Association Preserves: Rock Ridge Plant Preserve. Wisconsin: State Natural Areas: Miscauno Cedar Swamp, Dunbar Barrens.

PUBLIC LAND MANAGERS: Michigan: State Forests: Copper Country, Escanaba River. Wisconsin: National Forests: Nicolet.

CONSERVATION CONCERNS: The vegetation of this subsection has not been extensively surveyed. Further surveys of the area could possibly locate other rare species typically found growing on bedrock. Much of the Michigan part of the subsection is in State forest. Parts of the jack pine barrens of both States are being managed with fire, both for game and non-game species.

BOUNDARIES: The eastern boundary of the subsection in Wisconsin is based upon the boundary between ground moraine and pitted outwash, as shown on the Glacial Deposits of Wisconsin Map (Land Resources Analysis Program 1976). This boundary agrees relatively well with the distribution of white and red pine forest and jack pine barrens, but there are also some large wetlands along this boundary. The boundary between this subsection and Subsection VIII.3.1 to the east is also based on my interpretation of Hole's (1968) soils map; Hole maps outwash soils (H1-6) within the subsection. The modifications along the east edge are discussed within Sub-subsection VIII.3.1. Subsection IX.1 was extended to the south to include sandy outwash deposits dominated by either jack pine barrens or white pine-red pine forest.

The western boundary is less concise, but includes all of the large ridges with exposed bedrock and also agrees closely with the distribution of pine-dominated uplands. This boundary was modified at the northern edge to reflect Clayton's treatment of Florence County (1986). Bedrock was at or near the surface within Subsection IX.1, while loess-covered till was at the surface in Sub-subsection IX.3.1 to the west.