SAVING CLASSIC GEOLOGY IN THE BARABOO DISTRICT OF WISCONSIN

The Baraboo District, an inlier of deformed Proterozoic rocks in southern Wisconsin, has been a geological mecca for more than a century. It continues to be an important teaching laboratory for dozens of colleges and also continues to foster important research.

U.S. Highway 12 crosses the center of the District with one sharp curve around a quartzite ridge called Point of Rocks. The Wisconsin Department of Transportation (WDOT) long wanted to improve this curve by removing the end of the ridge, however important sedimentary, structural, and metamorphic features critical for understanding the geology of the entire Distict are very well exposed here at an accessible place. In the 1980s a compromise was negotiated by the Wisconsin Geological and Natural History Survey to remove only ten feet of the quartzite ridge, which spared the most important features. In 2007 we learned that the WDOT was planning to convert U.S. 12 across the District to four lanes. In order to avoid an adjacent wetland, the proposed new alignment would have removed all of the precious geological features. Our geological community campaigned to save the Point of Rocks by documenting its scientific importance and hosting a visit by more than 25 people representing WDOT, the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources, federal highway interests, contractors, the state geological survey and academic geologists. Our reception was cordial and WDOT not only agreed to modify the new alignment, but also suggested applying for eligibility for the National Register of Historic Places. Such eligibility was granted and an application for actual listing of the site on the Register is awaiting final approval.

We have been fortunate to have such a cooperative group of planners, but this can not always be assumed and, as we have seen, institutional memories are short. Therefore the broader geological community must seek formal recognition and legal protection of exceptional geological sites similar to the recognition and protection already enjoyed by sensitive archaeological and biological sites.