At the western edge, there are large steep moraines. At the inland margin, the climate is less moderated by the Great Lakes. Atlanta, a town near this inland border, has a growing season of only 108 days. Annual precipitation is relatively uniform, ranging from 28 to 32 inches. Limestone, dolomite, and gypsum are locally exposed and mined.
Soils are generally sandy throughout the subsection.
Soils are locally rocky on the drumlin fields and thin near the Lake Huron shoreline, where bedrock is locally exposed. Extensive peat deposits occur in the depressions between the drumlins and in old embayments and swales on parts of the sand lake plain. White pine and red pine forests grew on thin, rocky soils near Great Lakes shoreline. Most of the subsection is managed for forest products or wildlife. Agriculture is most intensive on the loamier drumlins and broad ground-moraine ridges on the lake plain.