Ice-stagnation features, end moraines, ground moraine, and outwash. Irregular lobes of end moraine, in which kettles and steep ridges make up most of the landscape, are characteristic of both the Michigan and Wisconsin part of this sub-subsection. Drainage system is poorly developed due to the irregular topography. Kettle lakes are quite common. The water of the kettle lakes is acidic and low in nutrients.
Soils are podzolized sandy loams and loamy sands.
Northern hardwood forests of sugar maple, hemlock, yellow birch, red maple, and basswood dominated the uplands. Forests of hemlock and white pine occupied the more fire-prone lake margins on steep south and west aspect slopes. Bogs and low productivity black spruce and tamarack swamps are common wetland types in the kettles. Individual windthrows were often relatively small on the stagnation moraine due to the irregularity of the landscape and the smallness of the ridge tops. In contrast, windthrows were probably much larger on the rolling ground moraine of adjacent Sub-subsection IX.3.1.