Post Date: April 1, 2013Trip Date: Summer 2012

Conneaut Lake, Pennsylvania… Kame and Kettle Topography


This article is the second of two relating to the glaciation of Northwest Pennsylvania.. The first article being # 15 “Jacksville Esker”. This article again will deal with the remanants left behind as the glaciers receeded or melted away…namely kettles and kames. It would be helpful to read article #15 before proceeding.


Scienctists have determined through testing and observations that the continental ice sheets advanced at least seven times ino northwest Pennsylvania during the Pleistocene Epoch. Ice first advanced into the Lake Erie basin region, known as the Erie Lobe. As this sheet moved it subdivided into smaller “sublopes”. Reference to the map #59 is helpful. The ice advance into Pennsylvania was from the southeastern movement of the Grand River Lobe or the Erie Lobe itself. I will not deal with the names or charisteicks of each ice advance. But, if you are the kind of person who wants to know more, please dig deeper.

The Pleistocene Epoch dates from 2,588,000 to 11,700 years ago. Each of the glaciations lasted tens of thousands to hundreds of thousands of years. The ice advanced, slowed, melted, receeded. The lengths of time we are talking about here are unimaginable. Considering the acient pyramids of Giza are dated to 3200 BC., which puts then in the neighborhood of five thousand years old. Homo sapians popped up somewhere around two hundred thousand years ago and continually evolve until about fifty thousand years ago when they began to exhibit full modern day behavioral abilities. Remember the beginning of the movie “2001-The Space Odyssey”?

Ice did not cover the surface continually during this period. There were lulls in the glacial activity when the land was not covered under ice, a mild to moderate climate prevailed. These periods were called “interglacial” periods. These interglacial periods lasted thousands of years. Think about this…there are theories that suggest our current position on the geological timeline puts us in an interglacial period. On the geological time scale, we left the Pleiocene Epoch eleven thousand years ago. This merely corresponds with the end of the last glacial period. We entered into the Holocene Epoch which runs from the end of the Pleiocene to the present day.

During an interglacial period the climate warms and the tundra recedes toward the poles. Forests returns to areas that were once covered by ice. What does this sound like? Current global warming ! ! ! Could we be in an interglacial period right now? Some think we are. Global warming is absolutely nothing new. It occurred numerous times in Eath”s past as proven by the different glacial events. For a glacier to melt the climate has to warm.

Thomas Nuttall first noted Erratics in northwestern Pennsylvania in 1810. Erratics are rocks found where they should not be. It was David Thomas, in 1816, who commented on the ridges of Erie, which at the time their origin was unknown. Reports from the First Geological Survey of Pennsylvania in 1858 only gave “incidental” notice to glacial deposits. By the time the Second Geological Survey of Pennsylvania rolled around glacial theories had become widely accepted.

The Pleistocene Epoch is divided into two glacial stages, the Illinoian and the Wisconian Glacial Stages. These stages are even farther divided due to the lengths of time involved. This article will deal with the last ice age, the Wisconian. Ice advances have been correlated with each particular glacial deposit left behind. Field examinations and testing of till, surface features, rock samples, quarries, drill sampling are just a few of the methods employed to paint the glacial history of Pennsylvania.

One of the subdivisions of the Wisconian Stage is named the “Hiram Advance”. It is this advancement that was responsible for the area to be discussed here. The Hiram Advance occurred during the later period of the Wisconian Stage and deposed glacial debris along its entire advance. The till is identified as being a gray to bluish-gray color, sparingly pebbly, calcareous clay to silty clay, it oxidizes to a drab brown color, contains 13.65% sand, 50.60% silt and 35.75% clay. It is now quite oblivious that taking numerous ground samples that the extent of this advance could be traced. The ground moraine , debris field, is discontinuous however in places. The Hiram Ice was sufficiently fluid enough to send tongues of smaller ice sheets many miles down the valleys as it advanced. Meltwater would continually flow off of the main ice sheet, freeze, remelt and so on, as this action continued it created smaller tongue like appendages formed of glacial ice. This would be one reason for the discontinuous debris field.

In advance of the main ice sheet, a body of ice moved as a tongue down the valley of Conneaut
Creek while it deposited it’s own specific type debris. The tongue of ice moved for a distance of eight miles down the two mile wide valley. By doing this, the tongue scrapped, cut and scoured the valley walls leaving behind typical valley glacier deposits composed of local debris. A similar ice tongue appeared to have advanced into an area around the southern end of Pymatuning Reservoir north of Jamestown.


At some point in time, the ice tongue of Conneaut Creek either become stagnant or receded. Numerous gigantic blocks of ice cracked off of the main body of the melting ice tongue. One possible explanation for the ice blocks would be due to the freeze thaw cycle. Meltwater would flow into crevasses in the main tongue, freeze and expand. This action would continue creating addition cracks in the flow. Eventually enough cracks would separate blocks of ice from the leading edge of the tongue. Huge volumes of debris are deposited, as the ice grows smaller. Meltwater flows over, under and out of the ice tongue carrying with it millions of cubic yards of glacial debris. This debris was in the form of mud, silt, sand, rock, and large boulders. The meltwater formed very large streams over the area creating glaciofluvial glacial deposits.


The Scottish word for “flat topped hills is kame. Kames are formed from the sediments being deposited from the meltwater. A kame is a characteristic glacial feature. It is usually an irregularly shaped hill or mound composed of sand, gravel and till that accumulates from a retreating glacier. Picture a gigantic hill of sand. Kame moraines are well developed in Conneaut Creek valley, at Steamburg, and at Pont. This tongue caused the creation of numerous kames, kame terraces, and kame moraines throughout this area. A well developed kame terrace was deposited along the east side of Conneaut Lake extending north past Harmonsburg. A kame moraine plugged the valley at the head of Conneaut Creek. Kames were deposited along with the till moraines just west of Conneaut Lake. Kames were deposited at the front of the ice tongue in the Shenango River valley near Jamestown. This entire area is dotted extensively with glacial features, kames or glacial debris fields


A kame is closely related to an “esker” (see article 15). Transitional forms between the two do exist. Kames are less continuous and are associated with ice marginal water. Eskers are more continuous and are associated with subglacial water. The Jacksville Esker is six miles long and was formed either in a tunnel inside the glacier or under it. They generally consist of well sorted sediments. If they were formed by stream action they are mainly composed of sand and gravel. If the sediments were deposited in a lake, the composition would tend toward clay, silt and fine sand.



One of the largest kames in Northwest Pennsylvania is about one mile east of Connneaut Lake, just off Ellion Road. The kame is positioned in a north-south direction, which would have been beside the former ice tongue. It probably formed in standing water as a delta at the mouth of a meltwater stream. This is apparent from studying the bedding in the quarry. The bedding structure is typical of stream deposits. It was determined through the study of cobbles in the glacial deposit that the material is composed of granites and quartzites, which were carried across the Great Lakes from Canada. There is also limestone from New York state and large erratics.



Remember the giant blocks of ice broken from the main tongue….. trapped and isolated, pressed into the surface many many feet down forming a hole or depression. Here they lay melting away.

Outwash and sediments poured into Conneaut Creek and Conneaut Outlet valleys. Because the rate of flow of the meltwater coming off the ice tongue was different at different times, the history of the outwash is complex and very difficult to follow. The tongue stood at different places at different times. The front of the ice tongue first was located at the town of Conneaut Lake as it stagnated and melted. Later its position changed to Harmonsburg Station. The sedimentary bedding is very difficult to decipher when and from where it came. With the massive amounts of till and sediments being deposited many of the giant blocks of ice left behind are being surrounded and even buried or blanketed by the outwash. As the ice continued to melt some of the depressions were filled with sediment, Meltwater continued to be carry these sediments farther and farther from the ice, heaping layer upon layer of glacial material atop each other. Ancient streams were being clogged, new streams were being created, valleys were buried under the immense amount of sediment and become flat land. The surface of this area was totally reconfigured. Numerous streams form deltas, which cause the bedding sediments to be erratic. With the amount of sediments being deposited it is possible that enough material completely covered some or all of ice block beyond the height of the surrounding land surface. The sediments could create a mound instead of a depression, or could actually fill the depression completely.

An unmelted ice block situated in the position of Conneaut Lake present, stagnated there. It prevented outwash from filling the valley an farther. As the ice block slowly melted away, meltwater continually carried sediments surrounding the ice. The melting ice held the sediments at bay and the growing void stayed filled with water, creating the very large kettle lake known today as Conneaut Lake in Crawford County. Conneaut Lake is the largest natural lake in Pennsylvania. In the area south of Conneautville, sediments were deposited in the meltwater channels formed between smaller ice blocks. Again creating many smaller kettle lakes. And an odd topography.

Kettle lakes are a common glacial feature. Michigan state, for example, is called the land of lakes…kettle lakes. Higgins Lake, Walled Lake, are kettle lakes along with others.

A kettle lake could therefore be defined as being a naturally formed lake as the result of blocks of ice being seperated from the front of a receding glacier and becoming partially to wholly buried by glacial outwash. When the ice is melted away a depression is left in the ground. The depression fills with water forming the kettle lake.

The areas in and around these types of glacial features are known as “kame and kettle topography” due to the above described features.



The Conneaut Kame has been under excavation for a number of years. It was a short time ago, when the excavation were only in their infancy and the road, Ellion Road, continued through the kame and came out at Foust Road, as seen from the satellite photo. Today Ellion Road is blocked where the excavation begins. The opposite end at Foust Road is as if it never were there, completely overgrown. One can still drive on Ellion Road to the kame, here is a good place to physically “get the feel and size of” the site. If you go there, try to imagine what was happening while the kame was forming. You might even imagine seeing the ice block a mile to the west.








I visited this site alone, as my companion, Adam was taking the SAT tests. Here I took the “highground” and was looking down into the kame. The low ridge seen in the foreground is maybe 25-30 feet below my position. It was part of the digging machinery roadway, running from the top of the kame to bottom.
















It is a breath taking view. You can see the development of this excavation is quite extensive. Sorted piles of different grades of sand and gravel scattered about. Several settling ponds to contain run off water. You can see the conveyor system where the machinery would deposit the particular material. The material would travel possibly to a sorting, screening or loading area.






Here I had to manually “stitch these photos together. I did not take a panoramic shot while there. Even with a wide angle lens, the entire site would not fit in a single frame











From my vantage point, I could see the entire area being excavated. All those sediments being dug up, from 20,000 years ago. It truly was an amazing adventure







I noticed a very interesting surface feature while panning the area in high zoom. Holes are seen bored or dug into the steep hillside. I did not explore the excavation on foot. My position and 35x zoom lens were all I needed. Wondering what made the holes it did not take long to find out…swallows. Yes, swallows, birds. Apparently they live here, as they flew in and out of the holes.















I walked down onto the level where the foreground ridge was seen. The swallow nests are behind the large pile. It is simply unimaginable to perceive the amount of material deposited here.








Where I stood the surface could be graded as fine sand with maybe small amounts of silt or mud mixed in. It is a very hard surface, nothing like beach sand. On my way back, another sightseer was standing on the top. He was as curious as I was so we sat and chatted, exchanged info.

There is really nothing here to collect. But that is purely a matter of opinion. Just to be here with the knowledge of how it all took place was enough for me. Still I wondered how much material was here before the excavation began? How much has been removed? What is happening here is the same as at part of the Jacksville esker. Sand and gravel, aggregates, are being removed for the construction industry. Cement, concrete, walls, buildings, roads everything we recognize today. Is the aggregate removal a good thing or a bad thing? Those profiting from sand and gravel feel what they are doing is a good thing. Those on the preservation side feel it is a bad thing. In some cases both are right and in others both are wrong. We all have seen things saved, preserved, costing money and jobs, that should have been destroyed. And on the other side of the coin things destroyed forever so that future generations will never see what should have been saved. Here is one last bit of information you may not know. Does anyone know of or ever hear of the “Mound People”? Two of their former sites are covered by Pymatuning Lake water. Do a little research.





There are dozens of kettle lakes in Pennsylvania. Seven in Northwestern Pa. are noteworthy because of their size. The Lakes are listed by size:

Conneaut Lake, 934 acres 68-foot deep in western Crawford County, is the largest glacial lake in the state.

Edinboro Lake at 247-acre

Sandy Lake, in Mercer County at 192 acre

Canadohta, 168-acre lake

Sugar Lake at 99-acre, 16 foot deep

Lake LeBoeuf, in central Erie County at 79 acre

Lake Pleasant Erie County, the 64-acre, 40-foot depth




I must give reference and appreciation to the sources used to gather the information for this short article.

Tomikel, J.C., Shepps, V.C. (1967), The Geography and Geology of Erie County Pennsylvania, Pa. Geol., Survey, 4th series, Circ.56
Page 29

Schooler, E.E., (1974), Pleistocene Beach Ridges of Northwestern Pennsylvania, Pa. Geol., Survey, 4th series, General Geology Report 64
Page 35

Shepps, V.C., White, G. W., Droste, J. B. and Sitler, R.F., (1959) The Glacial Geology Of Northwestern Pennsylvania, Pa., Geol. Survey, 4th ser., Bull. G32

Wesley, J.P., (1885) A geological Hand Atlas Of The Sixty Seven Counties Of Pennsylvania Embodying The Results Of The Field Work Of The Survey From 1874 To 1884,

Spencer, J. W., (1881) Discovery Of The Preglacial Outlet Of Lake Erie, Second Geological Survey Of Pennsylvania, Report Of Progress 1879

White, I.C., (1881) The Geology Of Erie And Crawford Counties, Second Geological Survey Of Pennsylvania, Report Of Progress 1879


Also to the DCNR for their map.

And Google Earth for their spectacular satellite imagery


Thank you and Happy Hunting

Frank