The Geology of Button Bay State ParkDodge, Harry W.
Science
The Geology of Button Bay State Park
Dodge, Harry W.
Geology -- Vermont -- Button Bay State Park
At Shelburne Falls the present elevation of these features is 300 feet,
at St. Albans 440 feet, and at Roxton, Quebec, 552 feet. It will be
noted that proceeding from south (Shelburne Falls) to north (Roxton) a
difference of over 250 feet is found between features formed at an
identical time in the past. The water in any lake is practically level.
It therefore follows that the present 300, 440 and 552 foot elevations
of the shoreline features are the result of subsequent tilting of the
earth’s surface. Perhaps the following reference to the water level of
present Lake Champlain will help in your understanding of this tilting.
The present-day average level of the water in Lake Champlain is about 92
feet above the level of the Atlantic Ocean. This water-level elevation
is constant throughout the extent of Lake Champlain and _is not_, say,
92 feet at Button Bay and 192 feet at Burlington. Again, the only way
that features demonstrating past lake margins or levels could, for any
one lake or lake-stage, now exist at different elevations would be if
some earth movements took place after the formation of the features,
resulting in a change from their original elevations.
The earth’s crust has been tilted, higher in the north than in the
south, during recent times. This tilting provides the clue to the
formation of present-day Lake Champlain. Major tilting took place after
the maximum marine invasion. Tilting continued, at a decreasing rate,
perhaps, to the present day. This tilting, with greater relative rise in
the northwest, eventually reached a point where marine waters were
excluded from the Champlain Basin.
Fresh water slowly diluted the salty marine water. The lake gathered
more and more fresh water through rain and melting snow, and a new
outlet formed in the north, in the approximate location of the present
Richelieu River. The area of Lake Champlain slowly increased to its
present size, and the clays which once formed lake and sea bottom became
the “hard earth” of the Champlain Lowlands. Continued tilting caused
flooding of the streams, especially in the southern portion of Lake
Champlain, such as the now swampy Otter Creek and its tributary Dead
Creek (see map, Fig. 2). This concludes the story of the Park clays.
From the rocks which crop out within a short walking distance of Button
Bay State Park a much older segment of geologic history can be studied.
THE OLDER ROCKS
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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