Glacial Lake Hitchcock and the Sea

State Geological and Natural History Survey of Connecticut Guidebook No. 10

78th Annual Reunion of the Northeast Friends of the Pleistocene Rocky Hill, Connecticut, June 5th-7th, 2015

The Friends of the Pleistocene gathering was held in Connecticut for the first time since 1935, and stops included the Hartford Clay of Glacial Lake Hitchcock. Eighty years later, there is more to tell about Lake Hitchcock in Connecticut. This fieldtrip demonstrated the evidence for a close connection of Lake Hitchcock levels with lake levels and the position of sea level in Long Island Sound via a channel cut into glacial lake deposits in the lower Connecticut River valley, which is superposed on a bedrock ridge at the mouth of the Connecticut River. In addition, attendees reviewed recent refinements to the chronology of ice retreat through the region as a result of new varve cores and the newly calibrated North American Varve Chronology, and discussed implications for the timing and mechanism of glacial Lake Hitchcock drainage in Connecticut.

Publisher: State Geological and Natural History Survey of Connecticut

Publication date: June 5, 2015

Pages: 56