Labor Day weekend adventures included a visit to Chimney Bluffs State Park along Lake Ontario in New York. The site is interesting in both a visual and geological sense.
(Breaking with tradition of same person not posting back-to-back Buckets, but there did not look like anything was queued for today yet.)
At this point the lake is eroding a drumlin. A drumlin is a glacial feature that hold unconsolidated and poorly sorted till. So the soil, sand, and stone mix may have layers, but they are not as cleanly divided as water deposition leaves. And the stones in the drumlin will be a mix of rocks scoured from local sources and also some brought by the glacier from further away.
Such glacial erratics in this area usually come from sources in Quebec to the northeast. They can be fairly easy to spot since the local rocks are sedimentary in nature and the erratics are often of igneous origin such as granites or metamorphic gneisses. Some of the transport is short range, such as finding cherts 40-50 miles south of where the outcrops reach the surface.
The Daily Bucket is a nature refuge. We amicably discuss animals, weather, climate, soil, plants, waters and note life’s patterns.
We invite you to note what you are seeing around you in your own part of the world, and to share your observations in the comments below.
Each note is a record that we can refer to in the future as we try to understand the phenological patterns that are quietly unwinding around us. To have the Daily Bucket in your Activity Stream, visit Backyard Science’s profile page and click on Follow.
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Stones in the matrix left by the glacier. The black one is a limestone from the Trenton group (Ordivician)
The beach is the usual cobbles with some larger stones that have eroded out.
Looking across Sodus Bay
On the edges of the drumlin where it is sandier the Cliff Swallows have dug nesting burrows
Another location visited on the same day along Lake Ontario was Selkirk Shores State Park which is near where the Salmon River enters Lake Ontario.
Cobble stone beach
A better look at the cobbles. A mix of stones from the local sedimentary rocks and stones brought in from further north by glaciers. (Red and black one in lower center is a gneiss from Quebec.)
Wolf Spider (Lycosidae) stalking prey among the cobbles
Giant ichneumon wasp (Megarhyssa macrurus) — note the long ovipositor
Milkweed Tussock Caterpillar (Euchaetes egle)
Someone remarked that it looked like a colorful and mobile pipe cleaner.
Mushroom growing next to a stump in the woods
Hmm, looks like a DYC.
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Now It's Your Turn
What have you noted happening in your area or travels? As usual post your observations as well as their general location in the comments.