Published in the June 2016 WCGMC Newsletter
All of us who live or travel in Wayne County in western New York State know it is easier to travel north-south than east-west. Most of us know that is due to the elongated hills called drumlins that cover much of the region. And we also know that those geomorphological features were formed by the continental glaciation that covered western New York with ice a mile thick until their final retreat 12,000 years ago.
BUT, did you know that until very recently, glacial geologists could not agree on exactly how these elongated parallel hills came into existence. It was known that the drumlin fields were aligned with the glacial flow and retreat, but it was unclear whether they represent debris built up progressively during glacial advance and retreat or whether they were sculpted out of older sediment from previous glacial deposits. The debate has raged for over 150 years.