Today,
and throughout the last 180 million years, weathering and erosion have been
creating
and destroying landforms all over our fair state and the rest of the
New
England region. For instance, look at the classic U-shaped valley
of
Crawford Notch below, as viewed from Mt. Willard. As the glacier
filled
and moved through what was originally a V-shaped river valley, it
sculpted
not only the bottom of the valley but the sides as well.
The Present
The Present, for our
purposes,
refers to the time since the last retreat of the glaciers about 10,000
years
ago up through the moment you read this.
Pick A Coastline....Any
Coastline
Since the retreat of
the glaciers, the climate started to warm and vegetation
returned to New Hampshire. At the site that is now Odiorne Point
State
Park, a forest of spruce and white pine trees flourished. As the
glaciers
melted back all over the Northern and Southern Hemispheres, ocean
levels
started to rise around the globe. Locally, this caused flooding
of
coastal areas, including the spruce and white pine forest of Odiorne
Point,
drowning the forest. At one point, the ocean levels had risen so
much,
portions of Southeastern New Hampshire were under water - miles inland
from
the present coastline. How do we know this? There are
remnants
of muddy ocean tidal flats that date back thousands of years, complete
with
mussel and clam shells, miles inland from toady's coastline.
At the same time that ocean
levels
were rising, the land was rising, or rebounding, from the release of
the
massive weight of the ice sheet that depressed this portion of the
North
American Plate. The land rebounded at a slower rate than the
ocean,
and may still be rebounding today. As a result, portions of the
drowned
forest are now visible again today at low tide.
The Saga Of The Old Man
The
Stats
For hundred perhaps thousands
of years, Cannon Mountain in Franconia Notch was home to a remarkable
natural
feature, The Old Man in the Mountain. The Old Man was first recorded by
white
man in 1805. It had probably been part of the mountain for hundreds or
thousands
of years before that. Sometime on the night of May 2, 2003 or the
morning
of May 3, 2003 the Old Man fell off the side on the
mountain.
The Old Man in the Mountain
was a completely natural, extremely detailed, 46 foot high profile of a
man's
face perched on a cliffside 1,200 feet above Profile Lake. It was
composed
of five sloping slabs of salmon colored Conway Granite that weighed
over
7,200 tons.
Some Trivia
The first recorded observation
of the Old Man was made by a two man surveying crew that stopped by
Profile
Lake in 1805. The two men who "discovered" the Old Man came from
Franconia
and Woodstock.
The two women working for the
state who discovered that the Old Man was gone, also came from
Franconia
and Woodstock.
A Facelift
Each of the five granite slabs that made up the profile of the Old Man
were overhung above the next block below. The amazing thing about
this
arrangement is that it all balanced on the 'chin' block at the bottom.
Efforts had been made since the turn of the 20th Century, to fasten the
topmost 'forehead' block to the rest of Cannon Mountain. (The
rest
of the blocks were too hazardous to approach and perform similar
operations.)
The top block had been observed to be moving away from the
mountain's
edge and the stability of the Profile was known to be at risk, even
then.
Turnbuckles were fastened
and concrete mixtures were added to fill in cracks to keep the stone
from
slipping further and to block water from seeping in and freezing.
What
couldn't be seen below the surface was the vast system of cracks of all
sizes
that let water in from behind.
All Good Things Must Come To An
End
These slabs were remnants of
broken
rock that had fallen victim to the weathering process of the
freezing
and thawing of water in the crevices of the granite, and the erosional
effect
of gravity on the cliffside. When water freezes, it expands,
acting
like a lever prying the cracks wider. When the cracks are wide
enough,
and the rocks happen to be hanging out from a cliff face, at some
point,
gravity takes over and the rocks tumble down to the valley below.
This
process both created the Old Man's profile and destroyed it.
Is The Ice Age Over?
Many climatologists
believe
we are in the midst of a warm spell between periods of glaciation.
The
jury is still out on this one, but the author of this web site has come
across
some pretty convincing evidence that this may be so, and that we might
be
heading back into a period of glaciation:
As the author of this site was literally typing this last segment of
the
web site, he observed someplace very warm froze over shortly before
midnight
on October 27, 2004 during a total lunar eclipse - after being behind
the
New York Yankees, three games to none in the American League
Championship
series, the Boston Red Sox won the next four games and went on to sweep
the
St. Louis Cardinals in four straight games to win the World Series for
the
first time in over eighty years!
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When A Tree Drowns In The
Ocean,
And No One Is Around, Does It Make A Splash? |
Though it blends in well
in
the photo below (click on image for a larger view), this 4,000 + year
old
tree stump on the beach at Odiorne Point State Park is a remnant from a
post
glacial forest. This forest formed along the New Hampshire coast,
as
it existed at that time, after the ice sheet retreated from the
immediate
area, but before it completely melted. Visible only at low tide,
it
is a reminder of the way the landscape used to be. That New
Hampshire
coast was miles further out at sea, and is no longer in existence due
to
the rise in ocean levels created by the melting of the glaciers.
(Click on the
image for a closer look.)|
Image
credit: Daniel E. Reidy
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The Old Man In His Prime |
Sometime on
the
evening of May 2nd and 3rd, 2003, the bottom most of 5 slabs of
overhanging
Conway Granite, making up the profile of the Old Man of the Mountain,
collapsed
due to excessive chemical and physical weathering of the granite
surface
and interior. It had actually been cloudy for several days
preceding,
but eyewitness accounts of "rumbling noises" coupled with possible
seismic
readings (recordings of the shaking of the ground), point to the
likelihood
of being the time of collapse, which turned out to be sometime after
10pm
on May 2nd. Again, there has been no hard evidence, or proof.
This
is just the best guess.
(Click on the image for a closer look.)|
Image
credit: Dan Reidy
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The Old
Man
Has Fallen And Can't Get Up |
Below is the
same view of Cannon Mountain in
Franconia Notch as it looks today without the profile of the Old Man.
Compare it to the photo above and see if you can identify where
the
remaining jutting rocks from the picture below are in the photograph of
the
Old Man above.
(Click
on the image for a closer look.)|
Image
credit: Dan Reidy
Below is a photo of a
portion of the forehead block being visited by New Hampshire teachers
attending
a workshop commemorating the anniversary of the Old Man's collapse
hosted
by Plymouth State University and the New Hampshire Geological Survey.
(Check
with Professor Warren Tomkiewicz, Ph.D. at PSU for info on next
workshop:
warrent@plymouth.edu)
(Click on the image for a closer look.)|
Image
credit: David Wunsch, Ph.D. - State Geologist of New Hampshire
How
did we know it was the forehead? Look at the pictures below for a
clue.
(Click on the image for a closer look.)|
Image
credit: Dan Reidy
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