THE ROCKS AND THEIR HISTORY
Approximately 75 vertical feet of the Glens Falls Limestone occur along the Park beach. The rocks are black[8] or blue-black on a fresh surface, gray or grayish-white on a surface which has been exposed to the weather. Most of the individual beds or layers are 5 to 7 inches thick (see [Fig. 6]) with the thickest being just under 5 feet. The beds are separated by thin “partings” of rock, many of which contain abundant fossils. The beds consist of massive limestone, shaly limestone or limy shale; the partings are generally limy shale or shaly limestone.
Explanation for [Figure 7]
1. Glens Falls and younger sediments were deposited on the Ordovician sea floor.
2. Sediments hardened into Glens Falls Limestone and younger rocks.
3. Rocks were tilted during the late Ordovician Taconic Disturbance and the younger rocks and part of the Glens Falls Limestone were removed by erosion. Erosion continued for some 350 million years.
4. During the Pleistocene Epoch, which started some 1 million years ago, glacial ice overrode the beveled layers of the Glens Falls Limestone. Hard rocks frozen to the underside of the glacial ice produced scratches or striations in the exposed layers of the Glens Falls Limestone.
5. Glacial lakes Vermont form as the glaciers retreat northward. In between the glacial lakes Vermont and present Lake Champlain, marine waters flooded the valley and formed an arm of the Atlantic Ocean. Clay, silt, sand and gravel were deposited on glaciated Glens Falls Limestone ([Fig. 1a]).
6. Present-day Lake Champlain formed when relatively greater uplift in the north dammed the Champlain valley.
The rock types found in the Park lead to certain conclusions regarding the environment which existed during their formation. Most of the rocks are composed of lime (limestone) or a mixture of lime, fine sand and mud (limy shale or shaly limestone). The mineral pyrite (FeS₂) is present in many of the rocks. Most of the rocks contain abundant amounts of organic matter. The sediments which make up these rocks were carried to the Ordovician sea by streams flowing primarily from the east. As these streams entered the quiet sea waters the larger followed by the smaller particles began to settle to the bottom. Lime was slowly precipitated from the warm sea water and pyrite formed under stagnant bottom conditions. Organic material accumulated on the bottom and intermixed with the sediments. The poor life-sustaining qualities of much of the bottom waters prevented rapid or complete bacterial action on the accumulated debris and the sediments remained “organic black” in color. Slowly, as the weight of overlying sediments increased, the lower layers were compacted and cemented into the hard limestone and shale which we see today.
The tilt or dip of the Park rocks resulted from subsequent earth movements. When were these rocks tilted? From the evidence presented in the Park all that can be said is that they were tilted sometime after hardening and before the Pleistocene glaciers overrode the region during quite recent times (at least 10,000 years ago). Thus, there are some 350 million years of rock record missing in the Park. Can we tell what happened during these “missing” years through a study of only the Park rocks? The answer to this question is partially “yes,” but we must look to the work done in adjacent areas for a more complete story.
The mere fact that there are no rocks representing these millions of years tells us that the sea had withdrawn from the area and that the previously deposited rocks were undergoing erosion during most or all of the missing rock gap (the time not represented by rocks). Information from adjacent areas, however, tells us that the Park rocks were tilted during the Taconic Disturbance which occurred during the final stages of the Ordovician Period. East of the Park, Taconic earth movements are more dramatically exhibited. The rocks are tilted even more than in the Park and are broken by faults or cracks in the earth’s crust. Some of these faults, known as thrust faults, positioned giant slabs of rock far from their original locations and placed older on top of younger rocks.
Following these earth movements there occurred a long period of erosion. Many of the rock layers were stripped off and carried piece by piece by rivers to other regions. Hundreds of millions of years passed and then, less than one million years ago the great glacial ice sheets slowly advanced southward over the Park area. Pieces of hard rock frozen to the underside of the ice sheets scratched and scraped the rock surfaces leaving these scratches or striations for us to see today (near the northern end of the Park beach these striations are common on the outcropping rock). The retreating glaciers created a series of lakes in which clay, silt, sand and gravel were deposited. Today these sediments are found resting on the beveled edges of the Park rocks.
Present-day Lake Champlain owes its existence to a general uplift of the earth’s surface, greater in the north than in the south, perhaps due to the removal of the heavy glacial ice sheet from the area. The greater uplift in the north dammed the Champlain valley which slowly filled with water. For a diagrammatic picture of the geologic history of D.A.R. State Park, see [Figure 7].