Above and Below

With the sight of the sediment-laden spring pulse, I have been wondering again about just what the Ottauquechee is taking downriver.  My casual research indicates much of the surface of the watershed consists of glacial till, sand and rocks left behind my the ice 13,000 years ago or so.

I'm still trying to understand what lies beneath the glacial remains.  Geological maps show a rock complex known as the Waits River formation underlying the region from Bridgewater to the edge of the Connecticut River.  These rocks, about 400 million years old, contain the evidence of the first creatures crawling out of the sea.  A book on roadside geology notes that these varieties of metamorphosed stone are "poorly exposed except in places along the river bed."

As one geologist put it, "grain by grain" these old, old pieces of rock make their way to the sea.