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OTHER FEATURES OF INTEREST AT THE
LAKE ERIE ISLANDS UNDERWATER PRESERVE

SITE #
LOCATION
GEOLOGIC FEATURES
1
 East side of Kelleys Island shoal glacial grooves, fractures, and fossils
2
 East side of Gull Island shoal glacial grooves, fractures, and fossils
3
 East end of Middle Bass Island glacial grooves, fractures
4
 South Bass - Ballast Island rise glacial grooves, fractures
5
 Starve Island Reef glacial grooves, fractures
6
 Northeast tip of Long Point on Kelleys Island glacial grooves, fractures, fossils
7
 Carpenter Point Reef glacial grooves, fractures, fossils
8
 West face of Kelleys Island shoal anticline, east-dipping beds or reef
9
 West face of Gull Island shoal anticline, east-dipping beds or reef
Other features that may be of interest include:
  1. Glacial erratics, cobble- to boulder-sized igneous and metamorphic rocks, were transported from Canada to Ohio by glaciers. These erratics occur locally in glacial till or on bedrock surfaces from which the till has been eroded.
  2. Glacial grooves occur on many bedrock surfaces in the island area. These grooves range in size from small scratches to troughs several feet wide and deep. The dominant orientation of the grooves is ENE-WSW, but on some bedrock surfaces a second set of grooves with a NNW-SSE orientation may be present.
  3. Following deglaciation of the Lake Erie Basin about 12,500 years ago, much of the Lake Erie basin drained. For several thousand years the western part of Lake Erie was exposed land. During this period, a river flowed through the lake basin, forests covered the landscape, and rainwater seeped through the soil and rock forming solution features in the carbonate rocks.

    Evidence of fluvial features may occur locally, remnants of submerged terrestrial environments (like a forest) may be encountered in deeper water areas, and solution features (especially caves and cavities) may be exposed on bedrock outcrops, particularly on the steeper west sides of shoals and islands.
  4. Large crystals typically associated with cavities formed in carbonate rocks may be exposed on bedrock surfaces and may be an attraction for divers. Unusual minerals found in the island area are listed in Cooper and Herdendorf , (1977), Resources of the Lake Erie Islands Region.
  5. The Starve Island “deep” is located between Starve Island and Starve Island Reef, just west of the preserve. This deep hole has been reported to be over 60 feet deep. It also would be an interesting dive attraction.