Changes in the Northeastern Landscape as the
Glaciers Retreated
(Click on the thumbnail for a full-size image.)
(Taken from Braun and Braun, "The
First Peoples of the Northeast.")About
13,000 years ago as the ice sheets which covered the Northeast for almost
5,000 years began to recede, valleys filled with the waters from the ice
melt creating great glacial lakes. Included among these was Lake Albany
which covered the entire Hudson River basin.
When
the waters receded, the Hudson River was left bordered by a rich alluvial
plain, a plain quite evident at the Schuyler Flatts. The flood plain here
is about 300 feet wide, 5 feet thick. Underlying this soil are glacial
drift deposits made of cobbles and pebbles. This gravel bedrock banks
gradually to the west of the Flatts forming a ridge. Here the flood plain
silt lies horizontally against the eastern slope of the glacial drift
beds. This Groote Vlachte extends for over four miles broken
periodically by small brooks.
