Amnicon Falls State Park

On the trip home from our camping trip on the North Shore a few weeks ago, we made a side trip to Wisconsin.  The Vikes were playing the Pack that night, so we thought we'd make fun of some cheeseheads, plus we had another waterfall to see.

Kieran had been talking about how he was learning about faults at school while driving up to Duluth and he asked if I knew of any that were close by....I did and I said we'd have to visit Amnicon Falls State Park in Wisconsin to see one...It's an easy to see site of the Douglas Fault...

Basically, in a highly simplified form....the 1.1 billion year old basalts of the Mid-Continent Rift System were covered by almost 3,000 feet of sandstone.  Some sort of compression event (probably), brought the basalt to the same level of the sandstone...there would have been all sorts of earthquakes associated with this...

As a result, the Amnicon River has cut through the less resistant sandstone and created a waterfall as it flows over the more resistant basalt.

With fall coming on and the time of the day we visited...lighting was tough...but oh well...

Just downstream of the upper falls is a nice covered bridge that you can walk across...

Just before the upper falls, the river diverges and forms another set of waterfalls...

The lower falls are where the river continues to cut into the softer sandstone...

It was a quick two hours or so, but then it was time to head home....it was a fun weekend...