Jackson Bog State Nature Preserve

Jackson Bog is a 58-acre preserve located in northern Stark County and owned by the Jackson Township Local Board of Education and the Ohio Division of Natural Areas and Preserves. The area was dedicated in1980 as an interpretive preserve. The "uniqueness" of Jackson Bog is a result of natural events that occurred thousands of years ago. Beginning more than a million years ago, at least four major continental ice sheets advanced into Ohio. The most recent glacier, the Wisconsinian, bulldozed its way south from eastern Canada and lumbered across much of North America about 25,000 years ago. Jackson Bog, which is actually a fen, or alkaline bog, lies at the foot of a dry, sandy kame (a glacially deposited hill or ridge). The belts of kames in this area of Stark County provide an extensive aquifer. These highly permeable gravel deposits readily absorb surface water and then hold it in staggering quantities as groundwater.