Karst

By definition this would be a landscape underlain by limestone - eroded by dissolution, producing ridges, towers, fissures, sinkholes, and other characteristic landforms. 

Although karst processes sculpt beautiful landscapes they are also vulnerable to ground water pollution due to the relatively rapid rate of water flow and the lack of a natural filtration system. This puts your drinking water supplies at risk of being contaminated.   

Someone once told me that the average soil depth on the Door Peninsula is eighteen inches.  That would mean that in some places you might enjoy the benefit of several to many feet of clay soil filled with glacial rocks.  And other locations the bedrock is right at - or quite close to - the surface.  Like these examples I photographed while bike riding last weekend:   

If you click on the second image for a better look you may note that the color of the vegetation in the farm field is mottled.  It happens to be greener where the cracks and fissures of the underlying rock formation are located.

This dolostone composition of the Door Peninsula explains why the peninsula exists in the first place.  As I have blogged-about previously - even the mighty glaciers thousands of years ago could not scour this rock formation from the face of the earth.  It’s tough stuff – but full of cracks, fissures, sinkholes and caves that allow surface contaminants introduced at a great distance to travel quickly and efficiently and show-up in your own water supply.   

This is a big deal with the expansion of large dairy operations.  When you have thousands of cows you are producing waste on the scale of a mid-sized town.  And if your only mechanism for dealing with millions of gallons of liquefied manure is to spread it on local farm fields you might just create problems for someone else.  Fecal contamination has already found its way into sixty percent of the wells sampled in Kewaunee County to the south.  Yup, 60%.  And the governor and legislature really haven't shown a great deal of concern over this.  You'd think that after the political fallout from the Flint Michigan water contamination fiasco this might just get their attention.  It is frustrating to know that most days government seems more intent on continuing to deregulate these operations and hold them harmless from ground water contamination.  Maybe some day a humongous class action lawsuit will turn a few heads.

In any event - if you enjoy geology you can learn more about the science of karst formations and groundwater here.