A Glacial Relic

When Earth temperatures started cooling about 100,000 years ago, ice built up in the North to over a mile in height. Forced to flow outward by its own weight, the ice sheet spread south, bulldozing the land. Then with a rise in global temperature, the glacier slowly melted back.

The continental glacier had spread south from as far as mid-New Jersey by about 18,000 years age, and was at least half a mile high. Along leading edges of the glacier, lakes formed in valleys blocked by ice and rock debris. In New Jersey the largest of these, known as Glacial Lake Passaic, covered an area some 30 miles long by 10 miles wide, and depths to 240 feet.

When at a maximum size some 13,000 years ago, the lake overflowed through a small gap in its rim at Liberty Corner Road, just north of here. The ice-laden waters rushed through Moggy Hollow on their way to join the Raritan. When the ice melted back, a lower gap at Paterson opened up and the lake drained, finally disappearing about 12,000 years ago. The basalt rock ledges and outcroppings within Moggy Hollow endured thousands of years of water flow and remain to this day, creating the marvelous rock structure within the Leonard J. Buck Garden.

This plaque was placed here by the family and friends of the late Dr. George F. Adams, distinguished geologist.

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Show me all markers in:  Far Hills, NJ  |  Somerset County  |  07931  |  New Jersey  |  United States of America

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