The Upper Wisconsin Dells

Location. The gorge of the Wisconsin River fiom the dam at the city of Wisconsin Dells northward
for 6 km, in Juneau, Adams, Columbia, and Sauk Counties, sec. 28 and 33, T14N, R6E and sec. 3 and
4, T13N, R6E (Wisconsin Dells North, Wisconsin, Quadrangle 7.5-minute series, topographic, U.S;
Geological Survey, 1975) (fig. 1). The gorge is most easily seen by boat. Boats can be rented in the
Wisconsin Dells area, and tour boats travel the length of the gorge at frequent intervals during the
tourist season.
Authors. Lee Clayton and John Attig, 1990.
Terminology. The word "dells" (or "dalles") has been used in Wisconsin for narrow rock-walled river
gorges, many of which were cut during the drainage of glacial lakes. The name "Wisconsin Dells"
(and the shortened form, 'Dells") has been used at least three different ways: (1) the sandstone gorge
of the Wisconsin River, consisting of the 6-km-long Upper Dells north of the Wisconsin Dells dam
and the 4-km-long Lower Dells south of the dam (fig. I), (2) the Wisconsin River gorge plus an ill-
defined network of associated gorges such as Witches Gulch, Coldwater Canyon, the gorge around
Blackhawk Island, and the gorge in Rocky Arbor State Park (all shown in fig. I), and (3) the city of
Wisconsin Dells (shown in lower right corner of fig. 1; formerly Kilbourn).
The Wisconsin River gorge. The width of the Wisconsin River gorge in the Upper Dells ranges from
15 m at The Narrows (the area shown near the middle of fig. 1) to 200 m south of Blackhawk Island
and 0.7 km north of Witches Gulch. It is about 20 m deep (down to the water surface) in mqst places,
but it was about 30 m deep before the Wisconsin Dells dam was built.
Before the Ice Age, the rivers of central Wisconsin flowed generally to the east-southeabt. Dur-
ing the Wisconsin Glaciation (and perhaps during earlier glaciations as well), the Green Bay Lobe of
the Laurentide Ice Sheet blocked the lower reaches of these rivers, forcing the drainage to shift south-
ward along the edge of the glacier and establishing the course of the Wisconsin River as we see it
today.
In preglacial time, the Upper Dells area was on the drainage divide between the Lemonweir River
valley to the north and the Baraboo River valley to the south. During the height of the Wisconsin
Glaciation, the glacier was a few kilometres east of the Upper Dells. At that time the Dells m a was
submerged under the water of glacial Lake Wisconsin, which formed when the central Wisconsin
drainage was dammed by the glacier where it overrode the east end of the Baraboo Hills. Lake level in
the Upper Dells area was at about 290 m (950 ft); only the highest hills shown on figure 1 were above
water. The gorges in the Dells area were probably cut when glacial Lake Wisconsin drained pata-
strophically when its glacier dam failed
Witches Gulch and Coldwater Canyon. Tour boats in the North Dells generally stop at two tributary
gorges, Witches Gulch and Coldwater Canyon (fig. 1). hey are a few tens of metres deep y d only
about 1 m wide in places. The gorges appears to be either a series of interconnected potholeslor
meander loops.
These and similar gorges on the east side of the Wisconsin River gorge could not have bken cut
by meltwater coming directly from the glacier, as has often been suggested, because any time the
glacier was far enough west to send meltwater into this area, it was far enough west to cover the east
end of the Baraboo Hills and dam glacial Lake Wisconsin, which completely covered the area of these
gorges. Any time this area was exposed to subaerial erosion, the glacier margin had to have been far
enough to the east that meltwater flowed southward along the margin east of the Baraboo Hills, com-
pletely missing the Dells area. It seems more likely that these gorges were cut by lake water rushing
through the Dells area when glacial Lake Wisconsin catastrophically drained
 KILOMETER 0
, ~

Figure 1. Location of the Upper Dells.

2
 Blackhawk Island and the "Old Channel." The gorge around the west side of Blackhawk Island
(fig. 1) has sometimes been called the "Old Channel." It is part of the Dells network of gorges. It
joins the nonh end of the gorge in Rocky Arbor StatePark (fig. 1), the south end of which joins
Hulbun Creek gorge."

Stand Rock. Stand Rock (area shown in upper left comer of fig. I) is generally the northernmost
tour-boat stop in the Dells. It is a pinnacle of Elk Mound sandstoneon the west wall of the Wiscon-
sin River gorge.

Sandstone walls of the gorges. The walls of the Upper Dells gorges are composedof sandstoneof
the Elk Mound Group, depositedduring the Late Cambrian Epoch. Elsewhere in southernWiscon-
sin, the Elk Mound Group is subdivided, from bottom to top, into the Mount Simon, Eau Claire, and
Wonewoc Formations, but the distinction between theseunits is obscurein the Dells area. Twen-
hofel and others (1935, plate 151; Trowbridge, 1935, p. 135) considered the Upper Dells sandstone
to be part of the Eau Claire Formation; Dott and others (1986) considered it to be part of the
Galesville Member of the Wonewoc Formation; Clayton (1990) and Clayton and Attig (1990)
consideredit to be part of the Mount Simon Formation. The sandstoneis poorly cementedand
consists largely of unfossiliferous medium to fine quartz sand. The larger grains have undergone
considerablerounding. Cross-beddingis conspicuousin the Dells; it is commonly high angled,
trough shaped,and large scale, with the larger setsa few metres thick. .
The sandston~in the Upper Dells has been studied by Fielder (1985) and Dott and others
(1986). They concluded, on the basis of sedimentary structures(including adhesion-ripple bed-
ding), that much of the sand was depositedin a coastaleolian environment.

References
Clayton, Lee, 1987,Pleistocene geology of Adams County, Wisconsin: Wisconsin Geological and Naturnl History
Survey Information Circular 59, 14 p. .

Clayton,Lee, 1989, Geology of Juneau County, Wisconsin: Wisconsin Geological and Natural History Survey
, Information Circular 66, 16 p.

Clayton, Lee, and Attig, J.w., 1989, Glacial Lake Wisconsin: Geological Socicty of America Memoir 173, 80 p.

Clayton, Lee, and Attig, J.W ., 1990, Geology of Sauk County, Wisconsin: Wisconsin Geological and Natural
History Survey Information Circular 67,.68 p.

Dott. RE., Jr., Byers. C.W.. Fielder, G.W., Stenzel. S.R., and Winfree. K.B., 1986, Aeolian to marine transition in
Cambro-Ordovician cratonic sheet sandstones of northern Mississippi valley, U.S.A.: Sedimentology, vol. 33.
p. 345-367.

Fielder, G.W ., III, 1985, Lateral and vertical variation of depositional facies in the Cambrian Galesville sandstone,
Wisconsin Dells: University of Wisconsin, Madison, Masters's thesis, 194 p.

Twenhofel, W.H., Raasch, G.O., and Thwaites, F.T., 1935, Cambrian strata of Wisconsin: Geological Society of
America Bulletin, vol. 46, p. 1687-1744.

Trowbridge, A.C., ed., 1935, Guide book: Kansas Geological Society Ninth Annual Field Conference, 471 p.