BLUESTONE WILD FOREST: A GLACIAL LANDSCAPE IN MINIATURE (MID-HUDSON VALLEY, NEW YORK STATE)

While glacial landscapes and features occur at all scales, there are only a few small areas that display a wide range of them. The Bluestone Wild Forest (BWF), situated in the mid-Hudson Valley, exhibits numerous glacial features all within a protected 358-hectare portion of a New York State Forest. Research focused on mapping and interpreting these features, as well as documenting historic bluestone quarries and the 32-kilometer network of well-engineered wagon roads between them. Bluestone workshop areas provide evidence of the methods used to cut sandstone blocks. Glacial features include striated bedrock, glacially scoured 7.2-hectare Onteora Lake, hundreds of boulder knolls, over 100 kettles, drumlins, relict glacial meltwater channels, small proglacial lakes (now wetlands), hummocky moraine areas, and a series of arcuate, boulder-riddled, recessional moraines. All features are readily accessible within a 2 km by 3 km area.

This glacial landscape sits atop Middle Devonian sandstones and shales of the Ashokan and Plattekill Formations on the broad Hoogeberg Plateau (122 to 190m msl) located at the base of the Eastern Catskill Escarpment. Large sandstone boulders scattered throughout BWF, as well as atop kettle depressions, provide evidence that the most recent glacier was mantled with supraglacial debris. Prior to the final down-wasting of stagnant glacier ice, at least one of the meltwater channels, the “Onteora Channel” may have served as an outlet for Saw Kill waters impounded behind the glacial ice that formerly occupied the lower Hudson Valley. This channel (~ 143m msl) is a nearly level, steep-walled, one km long gorge that is 50m above and 670m away from the nearest river capable of carving it. Other outstanding BWF geological features include knoll and kettle topography and a glacial landscape accented by a series of arcuate recessional moraine ridges riddled with chaotic jumbles of boulders marking temporary standstills along glacier fronts.

My research has documented an extensive glacial topography in the Catskill Mountain region. Furthermore, field research within BWF portrays an important early 19^th and 20^th century landscape that is eligible for the NYS and National Registers of Historic Places. Listing will recognize, preserve, and protect exemplary archaeological and geological resources.