Approximately 14,000 years ago, the Battleford glacier covered the area now known as Stop 9. As this glacier melted, it issued heavy amounts of meltwater which eroded a broad, shallow valley into clay left behind by Lake Indian Head, around 1,000 years before. As melting of the glacier continued, this broad valley was filled with 12.2 metres of sand, the upper 3.0 metres of which is gravelly in the northern and eastern parts of the plain.

Groundwater

Precipitation that falls on the Lebret Outwash Plain does one of three things: it either returns to the atmosphere as evaporation, it returns to the atmosphere as transpiration through plants, or it percolates downward through the sand to become groundwater. Most of the water moves slowly between the sand grains to the edge of the sand plain, where it enters the ravine approximately 1.5km south of Stop 9. Here the groundwater discharges as springs, and returns to the atmosphere by evaporation and transpiration, completing the cycle.

Plant species found at stop 9:

Alfalfa	Harebell	Smooth brome
Awnless northern wheatgrass	June grass	Smooth fleabane
Balsam poplar	Long-headed coneflower	Stiff goldenrod
Bladder campion	Low goldenrod	Stinkweed
Blue lettuce	Low prairie rose	Trembling aspen
Canada thistle	Manitoba maple	Western snowberry
Common pepper grass	Many-flowered aster	White cinquefoil
Crested wheatgrass	Northern awnless brome	White sweet-clover
Dandelion	Northern bedstraw	Wild bergamot
Dotted blazingstar	Northern wheatgrass	Wild licorice
False ragweed	Pasture sage	Wild oat
Fireweed	Plains wormwood	Wolfwillow or Silverberry
Flixweed	Prarie onion	Wood's rose
Foxtail barley	Prairie sage	Yarrow
Graceful (Canada) goldenrod	Purple prarie clover	Yellow goat's-beard
Great-flowered gaillardia	Sandbar willow	Yellow sweet-clover
Gumweed	Slender wheatgrass
Hairy golden-aster	Smooth aster