Lake Kankakee

Lake Kankakee
Lake Kankakee based on Barrett, Edward, 1916
Location	North America
Group	Great Lakes
Coordinates	41°13′N 86°58′W / 41.22°N 86.96°W / 41.22; -86.96Coordinates: 41°13′N 86°58′W / 41.22°N 86.96°W / 41.22; -86.96
Primary inflows	Wisconsin Glacier
Primary outflows	Kankakee River
Catchment area	l
Basin countries	Canada United States
Max. length	50 mi (80 km)
Max. width	50 mi (80 km)
Average depth	40 ft (12 m)
Max. depth	45 ft (14 m)
Surface elevation	560 ft (171 m)
References

Lake Kankakee formed 14,000 years before present (YBP) in the valley of the Kankakee River. It developed from the outwash of the Michigan Lobe, Saginaw Lobe, and the Huron-Erie Lobe of the Wisconsin glaciation. These three ice sheets formed a basin across Northwestern Indiana. It was a time when the glaciers were receding, but had stopped for a thousand years in these locations. The lake drained about 13,000 YBP, until reaching the level of the Momence Ledge. The outcropping of limestone created an artificial base level, holding water throughout the upper basin, creating the Grand Kankakee Marsh.

Lake Kankakee was a prehistoric lake during the Wisconsin glacial epoch of the Era. The lake formed during the period, when the Michigan and Saginaw lobes of the Laurentian glacier had receded back to the Valparaiso and Kalamazoo moraines. While the glacial advance became stagnant, the summer runoff formed a large lake covered parts of 13 counties in two states.

Around 1840, Mr. F. H. Bradley applied the name Lake Kankakee to the lake which he thought formerly occupied the Kankakee basin. The sand deposits outside the marsh were the first clue that the lake existed. These sands were the result of Aeolian or wind processes, not lacustrine, or fluvial processes. He predicted that the lake would have been at an elevation of 685 feet (209 m) above sea level.

The glaciers were static, only in that the glacial fronts melted at a rate matching the southward push of the ice mass. The meltwaters from the eastern edge of the Michigan Lobe and the western edge of the Saginaw Lobe ran through the Dowagiac River valley of western Michigan. Joining the ancestral St. Joseph River, reversing the flow southward towards the flat plain till plain, where South Bend, Indiana now stands. From the east, the St. Joseph River valley drained the meltwaters from the southern edge of the Saginaw Lobe and the northwestern shoulder of the Huron-Erie Lobe.