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Traces of the Ice Age at Ground Zero

2008_09_gzschist.jpgThe NY Times reports on evidence of the Ice Age that has emerged at Ground Zero, thanks for the huge excavation project there. It sounds stunning--"plummeting holes, steep cliffsides and soft billows of steel-gray bedrock, punctuated by thousands of beach-smooth cobblestones in a muted rainbow of reds and purples and greens." The area has been called the "Grand Canyon of Lower Manhattan," thanks to a glacier from 20,000 years ago. A geologist for Mueser Rutledge Consulting Engineers said, “As the ice passed over New Jersey, it picked up local rocks such as red shale and sandstone and gray basalt from the Palisades. As ice melted from the advancing glacier, raging streams of water flowed in front of it. The strong currents picked up the sand, gravel and boulders and carried them downstream across the World Trade Center site." Sadly, the area will have to be built on-- let's hope for an exhibit of photographs!

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Comments [rss]

  • mzungu

    did anybody find ron perlman living down there in the caves? :)

  • NannyState

    If we don't rebuild the WTC, the glaciers have won.

  • Pull My Finger

    Its fucking Bush's fault that there is no ice on it now !!!!!! Global warming made the ice melt bastards!!!!!!!

  • soopaman

    we can still call it the Grand Cayon for its lack of vision. David Childs is terrible...... I would much rather see this hole in the ground then the new "freedom tower"

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