As a geologist, I have to say that one of the coolest things about HSC is the fact that it has one of Massachusetts' few remaining eskers on the property. In fact, the esker provides the berm against which a lot of the ranges are set.
Eskers are really interesting and unique glacial landforms. They form as ice tubes or drainage channels at the base of mile-high continental glaciers. As the glacier melts and recedes northward, a huge volume of water and suspended sediment flows through these drainage channels. They are an extremely high-energy depositional environment, such that all the suspended silt, clay and fine sand is carried further downstream, with the effect that the sedimentary deposits in eskers are usually coarse-grained gravel and cobbles. They are generally oriented north-south here in New England, reflecting the epiglacial drainage regime from north to south. After glacial retrat, the topographic manifestation of eskers are long, sinuous ridges typically 30-35 feet tall. Most of them are gone now because they comprise valuable sand and gravel deposits that heve been exploited by aggregate industries. Where they occur beneath the saturated zone, they form aquifers of extremely high transmissivity, capable of suppying yields to production wells on the order of thousands of gallons per minute.
Here's an aerial view of an esker in Manitoba.
I didn't have enough time last night to walk around, but as I was looking at topo maps of the club before the meeting started it was apparent to me that there was an esker on the property. When Lynn mentioned the esker on the property, it was all I could do to hold off raising my hand and making Arnold Horschack noises.![[grin]](/xen/styles/default/xenforo/smilies.vb/041.gif "Grin [grin]")
Eskers are really interesting and unique glacial landforms. They form as ice tubes or drainage channels at the base of mile-high continental glaciers. As the glacier melts and recedes northward, a huge volume of water and suspended sediment flows through these drainage channels. They are an extremely high-energy depositional environment, such that all the suspended silt, clay and fine sand is carried further downstream, with the effect that the sedimentary deposits in eskers are usually coarse-grained gravel and cobbles. They are generally oriented north-south here in New England, reflecting the epiglacial drainage regime from north to south. After glacial retrat, the topographic manifestation of eskers are long, sinuous ridges typically 30-35 feet tall. Most of them are gone now because they comprise valuable sand and gravel deposits that heve been exploited by aggregate industries. Where they occur beneath the saturated zone, they form aquifers of extremely high transmissivity, capable of suppying yields to production wells on the order of thousands of gallons per minute.
Here's an aerial view of an esker in Manitoba.
I didn't have enough time last night to walk around, but as I was looking at topo maps of the club before the meeting started it was apparent to me that there was an esker on the property. When Lynn mentioned the esker on the property, it was all I could do to hold off raising my hand and making Arnold Horschack noises.
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