Kate Kenny notes; 7/31/21; ex Mary

Notes from Kate Kenney’s
(UVM consulting archaeologist)
visit to Krusch Nature Preserve on 7/31/21

  • Kate has a photo of Harvey Butts was a property owner of the Krusch Preserve
  • 12 min
    The geology of the preserve has glacial till environment. 14,000 years ago ice sheet one mile thick above us. Glacier moves forward like an oozing cake batter. Pushes everything forward. Rocks dropped when it retreats. 
  • Erratics from the retreating glacier. Melt water was definitely around here because the ice backed up and water melted so you get a combination of everything dropping. Lake Wisconsin east of here, ice could have been here and the glacier was draining south of here. The ice sheet moves and here we had glacial Lake Vermont.
  • The preserve was very close to the shore line. An ice dam broke and in a week or two the water dropped 300 feet. Sea water came from the North because the land was depressed from being under the weight of the glacier. That is why we have the Lake Champlain Sea. The land is still going up very slowly. Estimated time the glacier was moving was 2 feet a day.
  • By the river, there were deposits left by the glacier and as the river flows it deposits new stuff, creating modern Alluvial soil which is richer farm land. As you come up from the river you have exposed till on this property and then lake sands. The low area may have touches of clay being deposited from the glacier. 
  • 10,000 years ago the Paleo Indians had totally different settling patterns than Woodland, with different trees, fauna. The preserve has too much slope for a settlement of Indigenous people. In Jeffersonville village by the Lamoille is an archeological site where Indigenous people encamped while settlers were moving into the area.
  • 1962 Sand Blow picture
  • Porcupine eat shoots of trees
  • By the outdoor classroom
    Kate surmised that it could have been cleared for pasture. Not any fences for proof of animals that might have been in the pasture.
  • The field
    Hayfields don’t usually get plowed unless they are infested with weeds, looking at the soil sample the field didn’t have a lot of plowing going on. The soil sample had some grain sizes which show different parent material.
  • Looking into the forest-
  • Hemlocks have rot resistant bark. 
  • Pillow and cradle from wind fallen trees, pulling up massive amounts of soil and debris which when the root system decays you see the pile. 
  • Untouched forest, stream area nearby. The soil has organic material which moves down the profile to a zone where iron gets pulled out by weathering or extreme temperatures with sand at the base of the sample. This untouched soil has material we see in the soil was dropped by the glacier. The sharp lift up to the pasture proves that the pasture has been plowed.
  • ( Not sure if this happened on the preserve but before barbed wire was legal, and there weren’t a lot of stones to make a stone wall they used trunks to make fences and would line up trunks next to each other and the cows wouldn’t go through it.)
  • Barbed wire was illegal to use in Vermont until the 1880’s because people thought it was inhumane. Silos were not legal in Vermont either because there is fermentation that occurs and folks didn’t want babies to alcohol in the milk.
  • Down by the seasonal brook the soil sample was scoured by the brook- taking away the layers in flooding.
  • Down by the wetlands- silty soil. A pocket of Berkshire Silt Loam, a different deposit than the beach sand. The erosion could have created it but it could be from a different deposition. . Based on the velocity, sand is higher velocity and silt is lower velocity. Landscape changing in both places. Glacial Lake Vermont was before the Champlain Sea. When the Champlain Sea was happening the preserve was dry land. 
  • There are 4 types of soils on the Preserve: Lake Sand, Alluvial, Till and Sands and Clays.
  • The tree growth isn’t happening in the wetlands because it may be so moist.
  • Erratics occurred when the glacier was receding. Glaciers receded generally north.
    The Erratics are just down by the seasonal brook not found anywhere else on the property.
  • Eskers are giant mounds of rocks that were shot out of the glacier as it was receding.
  • By the Dragon Brook there is an old diversion gully that the brook took at some point,
  • The ledge that you can see at the overlook was around before the glaciers.
  • Then my phone died and I couldn’t video anything else.