Sunken Forest EarthCache

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GeoAwareUSA6
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Hidden : 9/4/2007
Difficulty:
4 out of 5
Terrain:
3 out of 5

Size: Size: not chosen (not chosen)

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Geocache Description:

At low tide a visit to the sunken forest will allow you to glimpse a three to four thousand year old forest (EXPECT TO WADE IN WATER DURING LOW TIDE and EXTREME LOW TIDE TO SEE MOST REMAINS). Grown in the years following the last glacial retreat, glacial processes are responsible for the demise and preservation of these unique remains.

The sunken forest is a result of glacial processes which allowed its growth and concurrently destroyed it.

Glaciers form when the accumulation of precipitation exceeds ablation. About a million years ago, a great sheet of ice moved slowly southward over the land, depressing it under its great weight. The ice scoured the surface, polishing and rounding the rock outcrops, pushing up over hills, and plucking or pulling out blocks of rock.

In addition to scraping and scouring the landscape, glaciers were responsible for causing alterations to the actual location of the shoreline itself. During the ice age, vast amounts of water were locked up in the ice sheet, lowering the sea level many hundreds of feet. As a result, the shoreline was far to the east of where it is now. Because the weight of the ice depressed the land, water flooded these coastal areas as the ice melted and sea level rose to several hundred feet higher than at present. The for a time the sea level fluctuated in response to unweighting of the land after the ice front retreated inland as the ice masses melted. Some estimates say that the coastline of New England used to extend 75 miles east of its current position; a Native American of the era could have walked from Nantucket to southern Cape Cod without touching the Atlantic Ocean. Another estimate states that New Hampshire's shore could have been a few miles inland. The former estimate is more likely. Fishermen have hauled up mastodon and mammoth teeth miles offshore, suggesting that the forest extended quite far from its western shoreline boundary. Forests that grew east of the present shoreline when sea level was lower were drowned when the water rose.

In the cove just south of Odiorne Point, the stumps of a peat deposit can be seen in the mudflats at low tide. Age determination by the Carbon 14 method from stumps in the buried forest at Jenness Beach in Rye, a few miles south, give around 3600 years ago as the time when the trees grew.

Your task, if you chose to accept it is as follows:

Logging Requirements:
1) Locate the largest tree remains and measure at the widest point. An
estimated width is fine.
2) Gently explore the peat which has preserved the trees. Describe it and consider the following questions:
a. What is its color?
b. What is its density? (Is it soft or very soft? Explore how it reacts to indentations of your finger.)
c. Does it seem fiberous or non fiberous?
d. What is its organic content? (Organic vs. Mildly Organic - Is it more root matter than soil?)

Links: (visit link)

Other Sunken Forests: (visit link) (visit link) (visit link) (visit link) (Interactive glacial life) (visit link) (PBS Descent into the ice)

Use (visit link) to determine appropriate times of forest exposure.

Additional Hints (No hints available.)



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