On Saturday morning my neighbor and I headed out for a riverboat ride. This time we were going to see Richard Little, Professor Emeritus, talk about the geology of the area and river.
From the website:
“Geology comes alive through the clear and often humorous stories of Richard Little. Back by popular demand! Be sure to reserve your seats early, last year’s cruises sold out! This relaxing cruise on the Connecticut River will be filled with tales of drifting continents, earthquakes, dinosaurs, glaciers, Lake Hitchcock, and the strange origin of deep riverbed holes; all are part of the creation of our idyllic Valley. Professor Emeritus of Greenfield Community College, Richard Little has published three editions of Dinosaurs, Dunes, and Drifting Continents: The Geology of the Connecticut Valley and created videos about the rise and fall of glacial Lake Hitchcock and the 500 million year history of the Connecticut Valley. Professor Little continues his passion for educating about geology through “Fantastic Landscape Tours” to significant geologic areas like the US National Parks and Iceland.”
First we headed upstream on the Connecticut river so he could talk about how the hills had been formed by the glacier.
Then we turned around, after seeing some eagles ahead of us, and headed downstream and under the French King bridge.
Between my shaky hands, the moving boat and my crap camera this was the only shot I got of an eagle. If you look in the upper right quadrant you can see a dark spot with white above it.
One thing I noticed was that though we are now in mid September, there was almost no hint of color to come.
Professor Little had brought 3 stones he had found to share with us. His claim to fame is finding armored mudballs near the dam we were heading to. These are very rare on earth but this area has a good many of them.
They are formed by pieces of dried mud falling into a stream of water, softening up enough to be sticky and having small stones stick to them. Then they must be buried nearly immediately before they dry out. Then time turns them into stone, above. If you look carefully you can see the tiny light colored stones around the outside of the mud areas.
He is working to get the mudballs declared an official Massachusetts "Sedimentary Structure”. The small dinosaur [Podokesaurus holyokensis[(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Podokesaurus) was made the state dinosaur in 2022.
He also had his “pet rock” a rock formed by pressure with stripes on it. The rock had been through an earthquake, so the stripes were interrupted, one set ½” above the others. He also had a dinosaur footprint he had found.
It was a cloudy cool day with wind on the river. But I had brought a warm jacket and was fine.
After we got back, my neighbor bought his new book about the geology in Franklin County. It had directions to many interesting sites in the county and information about how each one came to be.
We stopped for lunch at a little restaurant I didn’t know about and had a wonderful lunch. Then we headed home. I sat for a while and Tom came with the milk order and we got caught up on doings over the last 2 weeks.
I finally got myself up and went out to do the terrible mowing. It’s not been done in 3 weeks and with all the rain, the hot temps for a week, and my bad back, it had gotten really high.
It took me until 6:30PM just to do the yard and my brother had done most of the push mowing for me. I was wiped out when I finished, as I had to keep unplugging the bagger chute.
In the mornings when I am trying to check e-mail and write posts I have a lot of help. Laying on the mouse table is a favorite place.
Larry went through a couple days of not eating and I hope he’s decided to eat well again. But it doesn’t seem to affect his activity level.
He recently found the single chipmunk that survived the deluges. It lives in the old stone steps by the office door. He sits on one side of the screen door and the ‘munk is on the other, 6” away. I told Larry it was laughing at him.
On Sunday I have to finish the push mowing my brother missed and mow up at the barn. I plan to wait until 10AM in hopes the grass will dry. In the afternoon I am going with a friend to the last of the concerts for this year in Old Deerfield.