Hidden forest estimated to be 13,500 years old discovered along Lake Michigan’s shore in Manitowoc County

MANITOWOC – Did you know there’s a buried forest right along the shores of Lake Michigan in the Manitowoc area?

Yup, there’s a hidden secret, right out in the open, called the Two Creeks Buried Forest.

In April, a small group of geologists, joined by a landowner who is also a supporter of the Weis Earth Science Museum, recovered two relic fragments of wood that might date to the final glacial advance of the last great ice age during the Pleistocene Epoch — or about 13,500 years ago.

Visitors can learn more during an open house June 25 at the museum, which is on the UW Oshkosh Fox Cities Campus at 1478 Midway Road, Menasha.

“This is a reminder of the ways Wisconsin was affected by the very end of the glaciers before they moved back to the Arctic area,” said Scott Schaefer, interim director of the Weis Museum.

The Badger State is well known for its glacial landforms, created when glaciers spread across Wisconsin over the course of 20,000 years — from about 32,000 years ago to about 12,000 years ago, he noted. Scientists call this the Wisconsin glacial episode, a cold climate period in the most recent ice age.

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After the glaciers in Wisconsin reached their maximum extent around 20,000 years ago, the climate started to change, and the glaciers went into retreat.

The climate was warming but in inconsistent patterns, varying between warmer and colder conditions, each lasting hundreds to a few thousands of years.

During a warm phase roughly 14,000 years ago, a spruce forest grew along what would later become today’s Lake Michigan shoreline, near the present community of Two Creeks.

A final cold spell — called the Younger Dryas event — nearly 1,000 years ago resulted in expanding the glaciers one final time into southeastern Wisconsin. The growing glaciers advanced near the Two Creeks Forest by plowing under the spruce trees, entombing the forest in dense glacial clay and silt.

Over the last century, natural erosion of the shoreline has exposed logs from the ancient, buried forest, spilling them onto the beaches among modern driftwood, Schaefer said.

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A skilled eye can discern the ancient wood from recent. Color, texture and most notably density characteristics clued geologists from the Weis Museum into the heritage of the recently recovered specimens.

The specimens will be on display during a celebration of Menasha’s 150th anniversary at the UWP Fox Cities campus open house June 25. Schaefer will conduct free tours from 3-7 p.m.

The team of geologists hopes to return to the site this summer to see what new materials or evidence of the hidden forest are exposed by waves and summer storms.

The hope is to raise funds to send samples to a laboratory for radiocarbon testing to verify that they are indeed remnants of the Two Creeks Buried Forest.

Contact reporter Patti Zarling at [email protected] or call 920-606-2575. Follow her on X @PGPattiZarling and on Instagram @PGPatti.

This article originally appeared on Manitowoc Herald Times Reporter: Two Creeks hidden forest found along Lake Michigan in Manitowoc County