Thick glacial drift covers bedrock over most of the subsection. At the southeastern edge, drift is thin, with very localized bedrock exposures just south of the Crow Wing River and west of the Mississippi River. There is also iron formation at the southeastern edge of the subsection, along with argillite, siltstone, quartzite, and graywacke. Cretaceous marine shale, sandstone, and variegated shale are localized in the southwest. Subsection X.5 is divided into sub-subsections because of the diversity of these landforms.
Leech Lake forms the northeastern boundary.
Large rivers flowing through the outwash plains include the Mississippi, Pine, and Crow Wing. Soils of the outwash plains are primarily excessively or well drained sands, but there are also numerous wetlands with very poorly drained soils. More than 10 percent of the soils are peats. Boralfs are the predominant soils on the moraines. Mixed hardwood and pine forests, dominated by a diverse mix of northern hardwoods and white pine, were found in the most fire-protected areas at the eastern edge of the subsection.