Lake Hitchcock

41°49′N 72°38′W / 41.817°N 72.633°W / 41.817; -72.633

Lake Hitchcock
Sediment dam in Rocky Hill that once held back Lake Hitchcock[1]
Lake Hitchcock is located in USA Northeast
Lake Hitchcock
Lake Hitchcock
Location within USA Northeast
Interactive map of Lake Hitchcock
Proglacial and prehistoric lakes of New England during the end of the Wisconsin Glacial Epoch of the Pleistocene Era
LocationParts of present day Vermont, New Hampshire, Massachusetts, and Connecticut, including Saint-Gaudens National Historical Park
TypeGlacial lake
EtymologyEdward Hitchcock
Part ofConnecticut River Valley
River sources
Connecticut River
Basin countriesUnited States
Managing agency
National Park Service
First flooded
approx. 15,000 years ago
Max. length200 miles (320 km)
Surface elevation
720 feet (220 m)

Lake Hitchcock was a glacial lake that formed approximately 15,000 years ago in the late Pleistocene epoch.[2][3] As the Laurentide Ice Sheet retreated, glacial meltwater and runoff in the reemerging Connecticut River Valley was dammed by the terminal moraine, creating a long, narrow lake and trapping glacial sediment. The lake existed for approximately 3,000 years, after which a combination of erosion and continuing geological changes likely caused it to drain. At its longest, Lake Hitchcock stretched from the moraine dam, at present-day Rocky Hill, Connecticut, north to St. Johnsbury, Vermont (about 320 kilometres (200 mi)). Although the rift valley through which the river flows above Rocky Hill actually continues south to New Haven, on Long Island Sound, the obstructing moraine at Rocky Hill diverted the river southeast to its present mouth at Old Saybrook.

Lake Hitchcock forms an important part of the surficial geology of Connecticut, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, and Vermont,. It experienced annual layering of sediments, or varves: silt and sand in the summertime (due to glacial meltwater) and clay in the wintertime (as the lake froze). Analysis of varves along Canoe Brook in Vermont was conducted by John Ridge and Frederick Larsen, including radiocarbon dating of organic materials. Their research indicates that the lake formed sometime prior to around 15,600 years ago. Later, abrupt changes in sediment composition around 12,400 years ago appear to mark the initial breaching of the lake's dam.[4] These varved lake deposits were later used by European settlers for brick-making. The lake was named after Edward Hitchcock (1793–1864), a geology professor from Amherst College who had studied it.[1]

See also

References

  1. 1 2 "Getting to Know Glacial Lake Hitchcock". Connecticut Science Center. Retrieved 14 July 2025.
  2. ↑ Goble, R. J.; Rittenour, T. M. (15 November 2006). "A linear modulation OSL study of the unstable ultrafast component in samples from Glacial Lake Hitchcock, Massachusetts, USA". Ancient TL. 24 (2): 37–46. doi:10.26034/la.atl.2006.395. Retrieved 14 July 2025.
  3. ↑ Rittenour, Tammy. "Glacial Lake Hitchcock". Biology Department, University of Massachusetts Amherst. Archived from the original on 9 June 2015. Retrieved 12 June 2015.
  4. ↑ Ridge, John C.; Larsen, Frederick D. (July 1990). "Re-evaluation of Antevs' New England varve chronology and new radiocarbon dates of sediments from glacial Lake Hitchcock". Geological Society of America Bulletin. 102 (7): 889–899. doi:10.1130/0016-7606(1990)102<0889:REOANE>2.3.CO;2. ISSN 0016-7606.
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