Counter Theory

Burlington, Vermont
44 28.25 N 073 12.78 W

Mike's counter to my Ferris Rock theory continues to intrigue.  I got the note below from reader Ken.

Dick,
Did you know that geologists believe that Mt. Monadnock near Peterboro and Jaffrey, NH was once the second highest mountain in the world?  It was ground down. It sounds like your friend has the right idea on Ferris Rock though.
Ken

If I understand Mike's theory, he says that a spire in a canyon might have escaped scouring by the glaciers.  Think of the Grand Canyon with all it's internal spires.  Even if the canyon were ground down from the top, some of the deepest parts might survive unchanged.  Fascinating.  

Here is a pictorial summary of the ideas.

Picture a mountainous region.

The region is covered by glaciers.

The glaciers grind down the mountains forming a U-shaped valley or fjord.

Next picture a region with a deep canyon and spires in the canyon.

As before a U-shaped valley or fjord is formed but the canyon and spire survive.

All that is interesting, but the other theory that features like Ferris Rock could be cruise-ship-sized boulders dropped off by the glacier is still viable. I'm going to research this question more deeply here in Burlington.  There is the Vermont State Geologist, the Geology Department at UVM, and the Lake Champlain Eco Center as local resources. 

My Valcour Fantasy

Smugglers Cove, Valcour Island

Every time I walk the wooded trails on Valcour Island, I have a recurring fantasy.  This fantasy goes way back more than 30 years since I started coming here.  I fantasize that I am the owner and sole resident of this island, and that I use it to demonstrate energy self sufficiency to the world.  I would build a magnificent house using only local materials and local natural sources of energy.

You see living comfortably on Valcour Island would take lots of energy.   The winters here are long and cold making heat the largest category of annual energy use.   Cooling in summer would the second biggest.  Transportation, the third biggest,  followed by lights and electricity for everything else.   

To meet all those energy needs I would eschew wind or solar power.  There just isn't enough of either year round.  What Valcour does have in abundance is clean cool water from the depths of the lake, and countless downed tree trunks.   I would base my energy needs on those two sources.   In the house I would run a series of pipes that carry cool water in summer and steam in winter. Most fun of all, I would create an extensive collection of steam powered vehicles and tools.

I visualize myself having great fun traversing the island in my steam ATV, using steam powered saws and winches to retrieve, cut and transport the trunks of downed trees.   There are so many of them, and the supply is constantly renewed, so that the supply would be endless.   The impact of my footprint on the forest would be negligible.  The fun part of my fantasy involves designing, building and using these many steam and/or electric powered machines.   Of course the largest and finest such machine would be the electric power plant.  Electricity would be plentiful on my island.  I've worked on design and operation of power plants for many years, and I'm a great admirer of such.

To be sure, my fantasy is just a dream, lacking the practicality of a plan.  Where, for example, would I get all the iron for the pipes and boilers?   Where would I get glass for the windows, or copper for wires.   I most certainly need broadband Internet, and that certainly doesn't come from local resources.   The nice thing about dreams and fantasies is that one needn't bother with the inconvenience of reality.

What about food?   Well, I probably could fantasize about food self sufficiency here too, but I don't,   I'm an engineer by background, not a farmer.  If Libby or Jenny could fill in the food part of a complete fantasy..

But I wouldn't be greedy.   In my will, I would donate the island to the public as a shrine for energy self sufficiency.  An alternate ending to my fantasy would be to allow the island to become the operations center for operating the freshly combined New England and New York electric power grids.  After all, Valcour Island is not attached to the mainland of either New York or New England -- which makes it the perfect neutral ground.  The isolation of the island makes it easier to secure from terrorist attack.  In exchange for letting the grid operators use my island, I would require them to provide me with the world's best super-high speed fiber optic Internet connection.

Ferris Rock Theory

My friend and blog reader Mike sent this lucid and evocative theory about Ferris Rock. Thank you very much Mike.

Hi Dick,

picture a dry enviorment,millions of years ago,now picture errosion,rain,sun,water filling a canyon..or depression formed by plate movement, there stands a probably much larger ferris rock. now picture a wetter climate, much rain, the canyon fills with water and forms a huge lake,much like today.

Then the climate changes once again...as it always does, it gets colder, the lake is now frozen and ferris rock it trapped in the ice. It gets colder still and glaciers form. A new climate cycle begins, it starts to warm melting the last ice age glaciers, as the glaciers retreat..they do indeedgrind any rock in their path and as it slides over the top of the frozen lake,it deposits a huge field of rock.

The lake remains frozen and the glacire passes over the frozen surface as the lake which was frozen before or during the creation of the glaciers. physics state that cold goes down and because the lake was at a lower elevation it stayed frozen longer than the retreating glaciers.

Then, the climate continues to warm, the lake also thaws, the huge field of ground up rock sinks the bottom of the lake and litters the now existing shore line. Viola, the result of more than one known climate change...perhaps next in the cycle..serously warm...ferris rock will once again look just like those pillars in Utah.

thats my logical theory, and im stickin to it !

Mike,

Published with Blogger-droid v1.6.7

The Riddle of Ferris Rock

Smugglers Cove, Valcour Island
44 32.05 N 073 24.32 W

Being on Valcour Island and walking the trails almost always leads me to wonder about the natural wonders of this area, both visible and invisible.   Today, I'm drawn to the puzzle of Ferris Rock.

Long time blog readers may remember that Ferris Rock is a hazard that we shun.  It is a single shallow spot isolated in an otherwise deep section of the lake.  If we tried to sail over it, we would run aground.   I've complained before that no matter where we go, Ferris Rock seems to always be in front of us posing a hazard.

But today I'm not writing about the hazard of Ferris Rock, but rather how it manages to be there.   Based on the depth soundings on the chart, is must be shaped like a nearly vertical chimney, 120 feet tall, and 300 feet wide at the top.   I try to visualize what it would look like if the water were drained from the lake and it stood alone.  I come up with a picture resembling the famous hoodoos of Bryce Canyon Utah.  

I could wonder how a chimney like Ferris could form.  In the US West there are numerous chimney-like rock structures.  But today I'm trying to figure out how it could survive the glaciers?   It seems only reasonable that this chimney of rock would have been broken off and carried away by the mile-high glacier that covered this region.  Right?

Ferris Rock is not unique.  On Champlain I can immediately think of several similar structures.  Colchester Reer, Appletree Shoal, Rock Dunder and Diamond Island to name a few.   I have also sailed on Lake Malaren in Sweden.  Malaren is similar in size to Champlain, and it too was under mile-high glaciers 10,000 years ago.   Malaren is full of hazards resembling Ferris Rock.  On the charts they look like hoodoos -- very tall very thin chimneys of rock standing tall.

If my imagination is correct that these are chimneys of base rock that withstood the passage of the glaciers, then I'm stuck for an explanation.  It doesn't seem possible.

Reluctantly, I suppose that a more likely explanation is that my imagination is wrong.   These rocks are not as tall and thin as I imagine.  They are wider than they are tall.   They could be enormous boulders left behind as the glaciers melted and receded  

The shorelines around here are covered with small rounded rocks and small boulders that are left by melting glaciers.  I believe the technical word is moraine.    Could it be that the moraine has billions of rocks an inch or two in diameter, plus a small fraction of larger rocks a foot or two in diameter, plus a handful of truly gigantic boulders like Ferris Rock perhaps 1000 feet in diameter?  

A geologist should be able to answer the question simply by looking at rock samples.  Are these rocks part of the local baserock, or are they alien rocks brought here from far away?

Extremes

South Burlington, Vermont

Sometimes I wonder if age is catching up to us rapidly.   Yesterday I did something very stupid.  That adds to a long list of stupid things I've done recently.   Today I seemingly overcame that with a move rather brilliant, if I do say so myself.

Yesterday was my day to do the awaited toilet rebuild.  I've had the parts for two weeks, but the job needed to wait until we were anchored near a public toilet to use while ours was out of commission.  Burlington is that place.

We have a Wilcox and Crittendon head (toilet).  It is a massive, solid bronze item known as the Caddilac of marine heads.  New ones cost more than $1000 today.  However, parts do wear out and it needs service once every year or two.  I bought an overhaul kit with all the replaceable parts.   Yesterday I set out to install them.

The job is unpleasant and dirty.  Not only must one deal with potentially soiled parts, but the head is big, very heavy and awkward.  I'm forced to work with it in our small cabin, which means askiing Libby to leave the boat.  It is better than competing toilets though because I could flush it with clean water first, and I never have to work with black water.

Anyhow, I took everything apart. I took the parts out on deck and cleaned off the encrusted salt and rinsed stuff in buckets of water.  Replaced the old parts with new, and put it all back together.  Wait! When I put it together, I was missing a part.  The nut which seals the stuffing box was missing.  I looked all over and can't find it.   It baffles me how I can lose things so thoroughly on a boat, but I do.

Now what?  Without that part, the head might leak water all the time. I could order a replacement from Theoford (the new owners of Wilcox & Crittendon) but the last time I did that it cost a fortune.  They don't stock parts other than those in the overhaul kit.  If you need one, they find a craftsman.  Give him the original drawings and have him custom cast a new part from bronze.  You can guess how expensive that is.

Not the least of my worries was what to do without a head for the weeks it takes to get the new part.

This morning, I started fresh and I had  a g reat idea.   I would temporarily substutte for the missing nut with something extremely simple and inexpensive -- toilet bowl sealing ring wax.  See the picture.  A sealing ring costs only $1, and I needed only 5 cents worth.   Guess what.  It worked!!! Not only that, it seems to be completely drip free.  The old stuffing box with the (now missing) nut never sealed 100%, there was always a very slow drip of water.  I'm so pleased by myself.

But wait, now I had a leak from the toilet base place.  I had installed a new paper gasket from the overhaul kit, but it leaked around the base anyhow.   I retrieved the old home-made cork gasket that I was going to throw away.  I also wiped both sides of that gasket with more of the wax from the ring.  I worked perfectly.  I'm double pleased by myself.

So, what does it mean when one oscillates between exremes of stupidity, absent mindedness, and clarity and brilliance?   I'm afraid to ask.