While most school children today recognize the rounded hill and boulder-strewn fields of Maine as a product of the Great Ice Age but it has not always been that way. In 1864 the Swiss scientist and the Father of Glaciology, Louis Agassiz visited this area of Maine. He used the roche moutonées (round rock outcrops) in the area of Ellsworth Fall to help him develop his theory of the Great Ice Movement in North America.
Along the road in the area there are a number of outcrops that all show the same evidence of ice movement. This one roche moutonées led Agassiz in 1867 to write; ”At Ellsworth Falls, on both sides of the bridge, there are splendid polished surfaces, with scratches and furrows pointing due north.” In this passage, Agassiz noted polishing and scratching of bedrock surfaces in the bedrock. The most prominent glacial features on the Agassiz Outcrop are the abundant glacial grooves and striations. The grooves are only a few millimeters deep and are oriented nearly in the direction of travel. Presumably the glacier advanced from the north, gouging the bedrock with rocks carried in its base. It is interesting to speculate as Agassiz did about the movement of the ice that caused these scares. Could they have been formed by the construction of the road? This place has always fascinated me since the first time that I visited it in the 1970’s. I have returned time and time again to show other what the weight of the glacial ice did to the rocks in this area. There is a very small place to park the car along the side of the road. This site is best visited while traveling south and it will be on the right side of the road.
To log this Earthcache: You must post a photo of you, your GPS and the site in your log then send an e-mail measuring the direction of grooves using a compass. If you can't measure the diretion measure the width of the deepest grooves. Please begin your e-mail with the name of the earthcache and make sure your log includes the number of people in your group. There are several outcrops in this same area. These are not the rocks by the falls but at the posted coordinates. The grooves show direction that the glacier traveled in when it was last in this area. The rock out crop is on the edge of the road near a telephone pole.
Reference information used for this cache can be found at http://www.maine.gov/doc/nrimc/mgs/explore/bedrock/sites/jan04.htm If you enjoy this earthcache you may want to check the Maine Geological Survey located at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OK8VDsPKz5E&feature=relmfu They have developed a number of information sheets or field localities giving a great deal of information about geologic features. They also have a number of books and maps about Maine’s natural history/ geology that you might find interesting.