SIGN 1 | STONY CREEK WATERSHED
Formed from the meltwaters of an ancient glacier, Stony Creek flows 21 miles from Lakeville Lake to the Clinton River in Rochester, and drains an area of 74 square miles. Gravity pulls water both above and below ground into the creek from more than 2000 parcels of land. What you do on that land can have an effect miles away.




SIGN 2 | DON'T BUILD A HOUSE HERE!
On Sunday, May 23, 2004, you would have been standing in almost a foot of raging water with enough power to knock you down. Over thousands of years Stony Creek occasionally rises up over its "floodplain."

Park land is an excellent use for floodplain areas such as this. Damage to the trail is inexpensive to repair compared to the cost of flood damage to homes and businesses that have been built on floodplains.




SIGN 3 | A LANDSCAPE SHAPED BY WATER
As most of us go about our daily lives, we don't think about the forces that shaped our landscape so long ago. In Michigan, almost every hill you climb... every river or stream you cross... every natural lake or pond you see is the result of a swing in the Earth's climate - an ice age. what caused the Ice Age is not clearly understood, but a slight change in the Earth's tilt may have been a factor. The end product was - A Landscape Shaped by Water.




SIGN 4| HOLD ON!
From microscopic particles of clay to giant boulders, the glacier picked up and moved these materials hundreds of miles. When the ice melted, 100 to 300 feet of this glacial "drift" was deposited over the local bedrock (Coldweater Shale), which had been formed from an ancient sea. Since the glacier melted and left these hills, wind and water has been at work to reshape them. On the other hand, the roots of grasses and shrubs slow down erosion by holding the soil in place.




SIGN 5| "ICE LIKE PANCAKES?"
Before melting 13,800 years ago, this area was covered by a one-mile thick glacier. Glaciation was caused by summers in which snow and glacial ice would not melt much and winters in which snowfall would be heavy over central Canada.

When piled high enough, the immense weight of the glacier would cause the ice to flow outwards towards its edges - like pancake batter spreading out in a skillet. This is how the glacial ice slowly crept as far south as Cincinnati, Ohio.




SIGN 6 | WHAT HAPPENED HERE?
When Native Americans roamed here, this fie4ld was a type of prairie we now call Oak Savanna. Natural fires maintained this plant community. When the settlers arrived from the East, fires were prevented to protect their property and this savanna was converted to cow pasture. Today, the Metroparks are using controlled burns to help conver this field back to the original plant species of pre-settlement days.




SIGN 7 | ROCK AND ROLL
Long ago, a farmer loaded the rocks in front of you onto a sled and piled them along the edge of this old field in an attempt to make the land easier to plow - but this wasn't their first journey. If you visit Canada, northeast of Lake Huron, you would see the original home of these rocks before the glacier carried them here. 

Piling rocks along field edges has been a common practice for hundreds of years. Animals such as snakes, mice and salamanders may make their homes underneath them.




SIGN 8 | IGNEOUS ROCKS
Igneous rocks formed when molten rock cooled deep below Earth's surface. They cool at various rates and are made up of different combinations of minerals, so they range widely in texture and color.

Captions
1| Granite
2| Diorite
3| Basalt
4| Gabbro




SIGN 9 | METAMORPHIC ROCKS
Metamorphic rocs formed from other rocks by heat and pressure. This process usually takes place deep in mountain belts. The rocks are exposed when the mountains erode away.

Captions
1| Limestone becomes Marble
2| Granite becomes Gneiss
3| Shale becomes Slate




SIGN 10 | SEDIMENTARY ROCKS
These rocks formed from layers of sediment such as gravel, sand and mud, which were carried by water, wind or ice into a lake, ocean or stream channel. There, the material may be compressed and cemented together to form rock. Remains of plants or animals buried in this sediment may be preserved as fossils. When metamorphic and igneous rocks are broken down by erosion, they can be formed into sedimentary rocks.

Captions
1| Limestone
2| Chert
3| Shale
4| Sandstone
5| Conglomerate




SIGN 11 | THIS PLACE COULD HAVE BEEN THE PITS!
For nearly 40 years, the rumble of gravel trucks in the distance made visitors think a thunderstorm was coming. The gravel was mined from nearby pits and transported down rough and bumpy Inwood Road. Deposited by the melting glacier, the gravel was used to make concrete, asphalt and roadbeds. Former gravel pits often become lakes srounded by housing developments. the very land that you are walking today would have had a similar fate, but instead is preserved as Stony Creek Metropark.




SIGN 12 | A 26-MILE VIEW
Stony Creek Metropark sits at teh edge of a moraine that allows a view of downtown Detroit from the park office. At 300 feet above the city, everything to the south and east of the park was once the lake bottom, an ancestor of Lake Erie. From high scenic vistas to low flat farmland, from valuable wetlands to all-sports lakes, from the concrete in your basement floor to teh gravel chip on your windshield - these are all products of the glacier and "A Landscape Shaped by Water."




SIGN 13 | GLACIAL FEATURES
Kettle Formation
Down below you is a wooded kettle - different from the wet one you saw earlier but still formed by a melting block of ice.
(Diagram 1: dead ice - former glacier ice that is not longer connected to the active glacier, therefore not moving anymore and getting covered with sediments. Diagram 2: Outwash surrounding glacier and dead ice. Outwash - Sediment deposited by streams flowing away from a melting glacier. Diagram 3: Dead ice and glacier have melted, leaving behind kettle holes and Kettle lakes.)

Kame Formation
As you continue down the trail, you'll see a nicely rounded hill on your right before the last sign. This glacial feature is called a kame, and was formed at the base of the glacier by debri-laden meltwater flowing into a hole at the top of the ice. Kames and kettles are part of a larger glacial feature - a moraine.

Moraine Formation
Moraines are formed when the ice moves forward at the same rate that it melts back. Like the end of a conveyor belt, this allows all the clay, silt, sand, gravel, rocks and boulders to be deposited by the melting ice, often forming long ridges.

You are standing on the "Birmingham Moraine." It runs from Birmingham all the way up to Attica, and provides the rolling topography of Auburn Hills, Rochester Hills, Rochester, the west side of Romeo, Washington, Bruce, Oakland and Addison Townships, as well as the Metamora area.




SIGN 14 | WHO PUT THE KETTLE ON?
The glacier, of course!

As the glacier melted, chunks of ice would occasionally break off. Upon melting, they left depressions or "kettles" in the landscape. These created bodies of water ranging from large, deep lakes to small ponds that dry up in summer... to depressions that never have standing water. Thousands of years ago, this little kettle was 23 feet deep, but layer upon layer of dead plant material has filled it uo the point that it may appear dry during the summer. Although nearly filled with plant remains, it provides food and water to many types of wildlife, as well as a nursery for ducks, insects, frogs and salamanders.

Captions
1| Wood Ducks
2| Mating Damselflies
3| Spring Peeper
4| Damselfly Nymph
5| Spotted Salamander
6| Raccoon
7| Aquatic Snails
8| Green Heron