glaciallegaciesofnewyorkstate-thegeospherefrontpage（8页）.docVIP

Glacial Legacies of New York State Please note the listing of New York State regional parks that highlight local glacial features. A school or family excursion can provide new appreciation of our natural world. Images: 1. For those of us living in the 21st century, it may be difficult to think of a time when nearly all of New York State was covered by a sheet of ice nearly a mile thick. This was also a revolutionary idea when proposed by geologists nearly a century ago. As you will see, the proof is in the landscape. New York State has a great number as well as a great variety of features that show our glacial past. 2. This is my fellow science teacher Dames Boire of Somers HS, NY, who sent me the image in humor. I used to kid him that his behemoth motorcycle (not really) is so big it could be a snowplow. Next to the one I drove, it is. Thanks Dames. 3. This is actually a photograph near the end of a valley glacier in coastal Alaska. Please note that it is unlikely any humans at all were in North America at the recent maximum of glaciation 20,000 years ago. But the person here does give a sense of scale. 4. This image is a hanging glacier in the Canadian Rockies taken as a 35 mm slide in 1973. An Internet search (Edith Clavell Glacier) may show you what this glacier looks like today. 5. Studies of oxygen ratios from deep parts of the oceans have allowed scientists to “measure” world temperatures and match these measurements with the four major stages of glaciation in the past 2 million years. Each major stage of glaciation is named for a state in which glacial deposits of that advance are readily found. The most recent is referred to as Wisconsin Glaciation. 6. Continental glaciers covered much of the northern United States and flowed southward into New York from eastern Canada. The ice flowed outward from where it was thickest like pancake batter poured on a griddle. 7. The southern boundary of New York State is the approximate southern limit o