GLACIAL FEATURES: Drumlins (Gill, drive through them along Turners Falls Rd.) Esker, Old Vernon Rd, off Rte. Adams Highland Park’s Sachems Run Trail, Greenfield.ĬAVES: Catamount, Colrain Mt. 2 Brush Mt., Northfield Shelburne Falls Potholes Marble Natural Bridge, N. UNUSUAL AND DRAMATIC ROCK OUTCROPS: GCC Geology Path Erving, Rte. Also, search riverbank rocks below the Turners Falls Dam. While these are not spectacular like a reptile print, they are fossils and these pits, bumps, and scratches are commonly seen along the Mesozoic red rock bedding planes. Tannery Falls, Savoy Turners Falls, Barton Cove (abandoned falls), Gill Chapel Falls, Ashfield Roaring Brook, Sunderland.įOSSILS: Beneski Museum at Amherst College….not in Franklin County, but “world class” Barton Cove’s historic footprint quarry, Gill Note: insects and other invertebrates left lots of tracks, trails, and burrows in our Jurassic sedimentary rocks. Sugarloaf, South Deerfield High Ledges, Shelburne Falls GREAT VIEWPOINTS: Poet’s Seat, Greenfield Mt. Rare armored mud ball specimens are on display. Exact directions and information are found in the new “Exploring Franklin County” book or you can “Google” for directions.Ī “START HERE” DESTINATION: Greenfield Community College Geology Path (by parking lot F). Whether you are a visitor or a resident, I have selected a few spectacular places to start your explorations. Fishing, hiking, camping, skiing, white-water rafting, boating and lots of nature viewing are all options.
#Earthviews geological plus
All three rock types can be easily seen: metamorphic, igneous, and sedimentary, plus there is a notable variety and diversity of landscapes from mountainous canyons and waterfalls to meandering streams to explore. You get to see rocks and landscapes beautifully displayed. This east-west road cuts across the middle of Franklin County as well as across the geologic rock trends. Many visitors and locals travel along Rte. Everything is scenic, interesting, sometimes unique (like the armored mud balls), easy to access, and close-by.
Strange stories, “nice” indeed!Īll these scenic wonders can be experienced from roadway viewing spots and / or short walks, and they are all 30 minutes or less from Greenfield. You need to take a summer scenic boat trip with a depth finder to appreciate this hidden history.Īt Shelburne Falls an effect of Lake Hitchcock caused the Deerfield River to carve the famous “Glacial” Potholes exposing some of the most beautiful rock in the world, a metamorphic type called gneiss (“nice”). There are deep river holes here (old waterfall plunge pools).
The Connecticut also suddenly and uncharacteristically, abruptly bends to the west near the French King Bridge. The Deerfield and Millers Rivers both turn north, opposite the regional land slope, and enter the Connecticut facing upstream. The lake’s thick accumulation of sediment caused area rivers to do strange things. Lake Hitchcock’s deposits are a major shaping force of today’s landscape along the Connecticut River Valley. This was glacial Lake Hitchcock which finally drained about 14,000 years ago. The last glacier had a prominent glacial lake that followed the melting ice front from central Connecticut and through Massachusetts and northward. Skipping about 200 million years ahead to the late Cenozoic Era, glaciers advanced and melted. These are rocks from the deep middle of mountains exposed by three hundred million years of erosion. It shows metamorphic rock (schist) with quartz “pods” called boudins (French for “sausage”). The photo is the prominent roadcut along Rte. Franklin County was now “landlocked” in the middle of mountains, the young Appalachians now mostly eroded.
Those collisions created metamorphic rock out of the old ocean sediment. Tectonic plates came from afar and collided to make the super continent of Pangea. In the Paleozoic Era western Franklin County was the underwater edge of the North American continent. Here is the geology story of Franklin County and surroundings, greatly summarized. We also have quite a bunch of rocks, too, including famous ones with dinosaur footprints plus we also have something truly unique: the world’s only petrified armored mud balls. Franklin County has magnificent landscape scenery: mountains, waterfalls, rushing rivers and meandering ones, such as New England’s longest river, the Connecticut. Franklin County, Massachusetts: the world’s best place to study geology! Be prepared to be amazed! Most people think of geology as “just a bunch of rocks”, but exciting Earth events are recorded in rocks and landscapes, too.
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