SURFICIAL GEOLOGY AND A DRAINAGE ANALYSIS OF THE FORMER BUFFALO CRUSHED STONE QUARRY, ALFRED STATION, NY

The Buffalo Crushed Stone (BCS) Company stopped mining sand and gravel at its 263-acre site in Alfred Station in 1996. The site was offered then to Alfred University and university officials accepted. Within the next two years the BCS site will officially become university property. An outside firm did an environmental assessment of the property, but that report contained little information about the site’s geological or hydrological characteristics. The purposes of this study are to describe and analyze the surficial geology at the site, and to determine the site’s drainage characteristics in order to make recommendations about future land use on the property.

The sand and gravel deposit is a kame, deposited during the most recent glacial advance. Textural analyses of surface samples show that the southern end of the quarry contains less clay than the northern end. As you move from the southern end to the northern end, the soil contains more clay, progressing from loamy sand to sandy clay loam, giving rise to faster drainage at the southern end. This textural change is hypothesized to be due to differences in the proximity of the kame to the ice moving through the valley. Other soil properties being studied are Atterberg limits (liquid and plastic), percolation rate and slope stability. Using the GIS program ArcView 3.2, surface runoff flow direction and accumulation have been determined. Most of the flow appears to move in a westerly direction, heading downhill to nearby Canacadea Creek. A digital elevation model of the site and the surrounding area has also been created.