Agenda - Parks and Recreation Commission - 11/09/1995

Home

Background Of the CityofR.arnse7 .. , _ ~..~1~ ~ ~. Deep !ndcrneath the land which is now the City of R_ sey lies layer upon layer of Precambrian sedimentary rock. Sandstone, shale, limestone, dolomite are the major rock types underneath not just Ramsey but all of Anoka county. A result of the series of seas which consumed what is now Minnesota tens of millions of years ago, these sedimentary layers are now a great storage arm for underground water) The most recent geologic event came in the form of great sheets of ice. Aproximately 20,000 years ago the Wisconsin glaciation covered most of Canada and much of the northern extremes of the United States. Two different lobes (protruding areas of ice) affecte~d the area that is now Ramsey. The Superior Lobe dropped sediments from the Lake Superior Re,on; the Des Moines Lobe, advancing from the west, brought limstone and shale drift. Following ithe retreat of the Grantsburg Lobe, an ancient lake covered most of Anoka County. This lake, in combination with the constantly shifting route of the Mississippi River, formed the Anoka Sand Plain, upon which most of Anoka County is located. Belts of lakes, wetlands, and hilly terrain in Ramsey and througout much of Anoka County are also a result of glacial history and its impacts.2 The two largest natural features of the City of Ramsey are the Rum and Mississippi Rivers. Creating the border With Andover and Anoka to the east, the Rum is a National Wild and Scenic River which begins as the outlet to Lake Mille Lacs, approximately 150 miles to the north. The name "Rum" Rivet was derived from the Dakota (Sioux) name MdeWakan, which translates as "Spirit Lake". Father Hennipen gave the river its first European language name, River of St. Francis. This he n ~arned after St. Francis of Assisi, Italy, who was founder of the Fransican Order of the Catholic Church, to which Hennepin belonged. However, sometime before 1766 when 1 Deposition began wi~h Cambrian Dresbach Sandstone, continuing sporafically with Falena layer, Ordovician, and Cretaceous. Any sedimentary rock layering which occured later than the Falena period has since been erode& For more information see: Ojakang, Richard and Charles Matsch. Minn¢$ota's Geology. University of Minnesota Press: Minneapolis, 1982. Bray, Edmund C. Billions of Years in Minnesota: the Geological Store of the State, North Central Publishing Company: St. Paul, 1977.