Hickory Run State Park
How the Boulder field was Formed:
The field is a textbook example of periglacial (near-glacier) activity:
- The Freeze-Thaw Cycle: During the last Ice Age, massive glaciers came within a mile of the park. Though the ice sheet didn’t directly cover the area, the extreme freezing and thawing caused water to seep into the cracks of the surrounding ridges.
- Breaking the Bedrock: The freezing water expanded and shattered the erosion-resistant Catskill Formation sandstone into angular blocks.
- The “Stone Sea”: Gravity, flowing water, and soil creep eventually moved these separated blocks down into this relatively flat, east-west oriented valley. Because the valley has a nearly flat gradient of 1 percent, the rocks were deposited rather than carried further away.
Mobility Command Museum
