Wisconsin Glaciation

The Wisconsin Glacial Episode, also called the Wisconsin glaciation, was the most recent major advance of the North American Laurentide ice sheet. Globally, this advance is known as the last glacial period. The Wisconsin glaciation extended from approximately 110,000 to 10,000 years ago, between the Eemian interglacial and the current interglacial. The maximum ice extent occurred approximately 21,000 years ago during the last glacial maximum, also known as the Late Wisconsin in North America.

This glaciation radically altered the geography of North America north of the Ohio River. At the height of the Wisconsin Episode glaciation, the ice sheet covered most of Canada, the Upper Midwest, and New England, as well as parts of Idaho, Montana and Washington. On Kelleys Island in Lake Erie or in New York's Central Park the grooves left by these glaciers can be easily observed. In southwestern Saskatchewan and southeastern Alberta, a suture zone between the Laurentide and Cordilleran ice sheets formed the Cypress Hills, the northernmost point in North America that remained south of the continental ice sheets. At the height of glaciation the Bering land bridge potentially permitted migration of mammals, including humans, to North America from Siberia.