January 2025

Time lines

The Catskill Geologists; Robert and Johanna Titus

The Mountain Eagle; Aug. 8, 2018

Late at night in geology bars, we geologists ponder deep thoughts about what geologists call “deep time.” We would like to relate some of those thoughts to you in this week’s column. It’s an account of what we visualize when we drive south a few miles from Middleburgh on Rte. 30.

Any time of the year this is a scenic drive. Left and right, we pass beautiful agricultural fields. This is a remarkably flat landscape and much of it is fertile land; it has been farmed for centuries and all farmland is pretty. Then there are several scenic hamlets, including Fultonham and Breakabeen. We like to sometimes stop at the farmer’s markets along the way. This is the modern world that we are traveling through, and Rte. 30 provides a very nice view of it. Autumn is coming up; you should take this drive

But, we are geologists, and we are always finding ourselves in the distant past. Did you read our recent column about this area? Then you know some of what we see when we do this drive. We related how this stretch of the Schoharie Creek Valley was once the bottom of an ice age lake. That was, perhaps 14,000 years ago when the ice age climate was warming up and the glaciers were melting away. We learned that this lake was hundreds of feet deep back then. If Rte. 30 had passed across that lake bottom then it would have been a pitch black road.

The next time you are there, stop and take a look around. We like to say that we are able to “savor” time at places like this. This broad flat valley floor has two manifestations in time. It is the world we see and that same flat surface was also the bottom of a substantial lake. This flat landscape has led at least two lives. You can imagine the thoughts this generates in a geology bar.

But, there is actually a lot more. When you explore the area, here and there you will encounter stratified bedrock. These exposures are mostly sandstones and shales, and it is not unusual for them to be rich in the fossils of marine shellfish. There are some substantial outcrops. One is at Vroman’s Nose. The next time you climb that “nose” watch for outcrops of stratified rock along the way. Drive south again and watch for more exposures along the way. It’s the same thing; those strata are frequently rich in fossils.  Each stratum was formed on the bottom of a sea. It gets better; each stratum was the bottom of a sea.

Perhaps you are getting the drift of today’s column; we have been describing a single flat surface that extends south from Middleburgh. It is a surface that exists today and, in this form, it is a very scenic location. But there is so much more. This surface has existed several times in the distant past. It was, 14,000 years ago, the bottom of an ice age lake. It was just as flat then but under hundreds of feet of glacial meltwater.

Then there was that third time our surface existed. About 370 million years ago it was the bottom of a saltwater sea. Geologists call landscapes like this “exhumed.” As such they are landscapes that reveal episodes of time from the very distant.

We hope you will enjoy this ride in the country during the coming leaf season. Pull over, get out of your car and “savor” our geological history.

Contact the authors at randjtitus@prodigy.net. Join their facebook page “The Catskill Geologist,” or read their blog thecatskillgeologist.com.

The Catskills: mountains or a plateau?

The Catskill Geologists

The Mountain Eagle

Robert and Johanna Titus

One of us, Robert, once suddenly began receiving hordes of emails from the students of an eighth grade middle school class. Each message claimed that he, Robert, had made a bad blunder in referring to the Catskills as being mountains. Each of them “corrected” Robert by pointing out that the Catskills are actually a “dissected upland plateau.” Their teacher had assigned them to do this. He wanted to know how Robert would respond to having been shown to be in error. Needless to say, this was annoying. It is, however, a commonly held notion that the Catskills are, on the basis of some narrow technicalities, not a range of mountains, but a plateau that has been lifted and then eroded, or dissected, by numerous streams, hence a dissected plateau. Let’s deal with all this in today’s column.

English is a wonderful language, well suited to describe the distinctions between all sorts of ethereal concepts. Typically, it is possible to use a choice of several words to describe the same thing. The words mountain and plateau are examples. The two terms grade into each other, but are defined in the Glossary of Geology, published by the American Geophysical Society (AGI). These are thus as close to official as such definitions can get, and they give plenty of guidance and also considerable leeway in using the two words.

The AGI definition describes mountains as being, first of all, taller than hills, usually rising more than 1,000 feet above surrounding lands. Equally important, mountains have restricted summits. They have steep slopes and considerable exposed bedrock. Perhaps most importantly, they are distinctive enough to have individual names. That last point is subjective, but critical.

Plateaus do not have restricted summits; they are “comparatively” flat areas “of great extent and elevation.” A plateau’s “flat and nearly smooth surface” can be “dissected by deep valleys or canyons.” But in the end, it must have a “large part of its total surface at or near the summit level.” When we look at maps of the Catskills, we think that the valleys are so broad, and the summits so restricted that they just do not conform to the notion of a plateau.

The Catskills are composed entirely of nearly horizontal sedimentary rocks and some think that this makes them a plateau. But the AGI definition does not prohibit flat-lying strata within mountains. Nor does it does it require them in plateaus. Those horizontal strata date back to the origins of the Catskills as a great flat-topped delta.

We travel the Catskill Mountains and see so many distinctive summits. Slide Mountain meets all the standards required to be a true and distinctive mountain. So do North and South Mountains, Overlook Mountain, Windham High Peak and so many others.
When there are a number of such mountains, the AGI glossary specifies that they can be combined under a proper name heading, such as the Adirondack Mountains.

But, beyond all of the above, there is an issue of elegance. English should, as often as possible, be an elegant language. Its words should flow off the tongue smoothly, they should also read the same way. We ask you: did Rip Van Winkle sleep for 20 years in a dissected upland plateau or in the Catskill Mountains?

Climb to the top of Slide Mountain someday this summer. Gaze out all around and decide for yourself: are you standing on top of a plateau?

Contact the authors, unless you are an eighth grade teacher, at randjtitus@prodigy.net. Join their facebook page “The Catskill Geologist.” Read their blogs at “thecatskillgeologist.com.”

Looking into the future

The Catskill Geologists; The Mountain Eagle, 2088

Robert and Johanna Titus

We frequently travel about in the Catskills and we are always on the lookout to find a new topic for one of our columns. One day, recently, we were approaching Mt. Utsayantha from the northeast on County Rte. 14. On the mountain’s slope, rising in front of us, we noticed a fairly nondescript mountainside feature. Take a look at the left center part of our photo. You will see what is sometimes called a niche, That is, there is a depression in the side of the mountain.

Well, “so what,” you might ask, “big deal, what is there to get excited about?” And, you would be right; this is not an especially big deal; it is just a depression in the slope. But, we are geologists, and we are writers. We are always looking for an angle. After all, we have to send off a column almost every week.

We started taking this image and projecting it into the future, of course we mean the distant geological future. What, we wondered, would happen if another ice age came along? Our niche in the mountain would soon fill up with snow. And that would initiate a sequence of very predictable events, typical of the latest chapter of an ice age.

First that niche would accumulate thicker and ever thicker amounts of snow. Then the thickening snows, under the influence of their own weight, would start compacting. The snow would be squeezed down into a material that would resemble the packed snow of a snowball. Geologists call that material neve’. But, the process would not stop there; the compacting would continue until the neve’ would harden into genuine ice.

Once enough ice accumulated in the Mt. Utsayantha niche, it would start to become dynamic. Ice can flow like a great rigid mass of water. Its flow will be very slow, but it will move. It has become a glacier, in fact it has become an Alpine glacier, at least a future Alpine glacier.

We had slowed down but now, intrigued, we pulled over, got out and stared up at our Alpine glacier. Usually we gaze into the past but this time we found ourselves looking into the distant future. We had traveled to a time when the Catskills had come to resemble the Alps of today’s Switzerland.

When will this future Switzerland descend upon the Catskills? We don’t know; we haven’t gotten any of the ice age geologists, that we know, to commit to a precise prediction. But current ice age theory argues that glaciations occur in cycles that recur about once every 100,000 years. So don’t hold your breath. It gets worse; Alpine glaciers don’t form until late in ice age chapters. After all the ice, everywhere else, has melted away then the cold mountaintops become active and Alpine glaciers form.

That happened in the past. At the end of the last ice age, Alpine Glaciers formed atop the highest peaks of the eastern Catskills. The best example that we know of are found at North Point, near North Lake Campground and to the south at Overlook Mountain. Another very fine Alpine peak is Hunter Mountain.

But why didn’t Mt. Utsayantha develop some Alpine glaciers the last time? It may be that the mountain is just not tall enough. It reaches an elevation of 3,200 feet; the others are just a bit taller. So, sadly, Mt. Utsayantha may not be tall enough the next time. But, we can dream.

Contact the authors at randjtitus@prodigy.net. Join their facebook page “The Catskill Geologist.” Read their blogs at thecatskillgeologist.com.

Tetraxylopteris

The Catskill Geologists; The Mountain Eagle; July 6, 2018

Robert and Johanna Titus

Tetra-what? Are we kidding? Well, if you have been able to read this far, we commend you. Our title is a one-word mouthful, isn’t it? But, here in the Catskills, this is something of an important word. It’s the genus name for a fossil plant that lived in Gilboa about 380 million years ago, during the late Devonian time period. With a name like Tetraxylopteris it’s going to be a challenge to write about this plant, but we are pros; let’s give it a try and even attempt to explain why this is something important in our region’s fossil record.

Take a look at our photo. It was taken in the open shed outside of the Gilboa Museum. The fossil lies upon the surface of an enormous boulder, collected in the Gilboa vicinity. Being outside, you can visit it any time you wish, all year round. The plant is a very distinctive one. You can see a main stem and then branches that stick out at nearly right angles. When those branches, themselves, have their own branches, those stick out–again at 90 degree angles. This rectangularity makes the plant so easy to identify. You just became an expert, but why is it important?

Tetraxylopteris takes us back to the Devonian time period when land plants had only recently evolved and were spreading out across the landscapes of the world. This was important evolution. We are speaking of the first time appearance of forest ecology itself–now that’s important.

The plant was a true land dweller; it had tissue that served to draw water out of the ground and pass it upwards into the stem and branches. We call that vascular tissue and it has always been an important feature of all true land plants. It had a woody stem and wood was a new “idea” for plants back then. Some of the very best preserved specimens have flattened structures on their outermost branches. These are thought to be proto-leaves, not true leaves but something broad, flat and photosynthetic. It was a good evolutionary start for real leaves.

It’s that woody stem that has been regarded as a trait that links it with the gymnosperms, many of which are today’s evergreens and cone-bearing trees. Tetraxylopteris was something you might call a bush; it probably did not grow as tall as a true tree. Some paleobotanists think it grew in thickets with each bush supporting its neighbors.

It was a primitive land plant in the manner of its reproduction. It did not produce seeds; it had an organ that produced tiny reproductive structures called spores. Individual spores are single cells that spore-producing plants use. They are caught up by wind and blown around, a lot like pollen. When they fall to ground they act like seeds and grow into a new plant. That may link this plant with ferns. Ferns, too, are primitive land plants that reproduce by using spores. If you think that the pollen season is bad nowadays, it might well have been much worse during the Devonian!

By the way, that name is not as hard to say as you might think. Try saying “tetra – xi – lopp – teris.” With a little practice it rolls off the tongue. And you will feel so smart just being able to say it!

The Gilboa Museum is having a big event, the Gilboa Fest, this Sunday, July 8^th from 10:00 to 4:00. Why not come along and see their fossil plants, including Tetraxylopteris, at the same time?

Contact the authors at randjtitus@prodigy.net, Join their facebook page “The Catskill Geologist.”