Hydrogeologic Setting of Glacial Lake Agassiz Peatlands, Northern Minnesota

Seven test holes drilled in the Glacial Lake Agassiz Peatlands indicate that the thickness of surficial materials along a north-south traverse parallel to Minnesota Highway 72 ranges from 163 feet near Blackduck, Minnesota to 57 feet about 3 miles south of Upper Red Lake. Lenses of sand and gravel occur immediately above bedrock on the Itasca moraine and are interbedded with lake clay and till under the peat lands. Vertical head gradients measured in a piezometer nest near Blackduck on the moraine are downward, indicative of recharge to the regional ground-waterflow system. Vertical head gradients are upward in a piezometer nest on a sand beach ridge in the peatlands 12 miles north of Upper Red Lake. Numerical sectional models indicate that this discharge probably comes from local flow systems recharged from ground-water mounds located under large raised bogs.