Geography of Minneapolis

On the south side of Golden Valley Road just east of Wirth Parkway, a stone containing a weathered plaque marks a point on the 45th parallel.

Minneapolis has a large park system consisting of ten square miles (26 km²) of land and water that is interlinked in many places.

Theodore Wirth is often credited with the development of this system that brought a playground within the reach of most children and the canopy of trees and boulevards in much of the city.

[4] These layers were the result of an Ordovician Period sea which covered east-central Minnesota 500 million years ago.

About 20,000 years ago, the area was covered by the Superior Lobe of the Laurentide Ice Sheet, which left the St. Croix moraine on the Twin Cities as it receded.

[6] The result was a series of troughs in the limestone, which were filled by glacial till and outwash deposit as the glaciers receded.

[6] Connecting the city lakes in several north-south arteries are gorges cut through the bedrock, but filled with sand and sediment.