Clark Reservation State Park
Encyclopedia
State park
State parks are parks or other protected areas managed at the federated state level within those nations which use "state" as a political subdivision. State parks are typically established by a state to preserve a location on account of its natural beauty, historic interest, or recreational...
in Onondaga County, New York
Onondaga County, New York
Onondaga County is a county located in the U.S. state of New York. As of the 2010 census, the population was 467,026. The county seat is Syracuse.Onondaga County is part of the Syracuse, NY Metropolitan Statistical Area....
. The park is in the Town of DeWitt, south of Syracuse
Syracuse, New York
Syracuse is a city in and the county seat of Onondaga County, New York, United States, the largest U.S. city with the name "Syracuse", and the fifth most populous city in the state. At the 2010 census, the city population was 145,170, and its metropolitan area had a population of 742,603...
. It was the site of a large waterfall at the end of the last Ice Age
Wisconsin glaciation
The last glacial period was the most recent glacial period within the current ice age occurring during the last years of the Pleistocene, from approximately 110,000 to 10,000 years ago....
; the plunge basin at the base of the old falls is now a small lake. James Macfarlane described the area in 1879, "On approaching the lake from the turnpike on the south side, the tourist is startled at finding himself, without any notice, on the brink of a yawning gulf, precisely like that of the Niagara River below the Falls, and nearly as deep." Clark Reservation is also noted for its many ferns; it harbors the largest population in the U.S. of American hart's tongue, which is so rare that it was declared endangered in the U.S. in 1989.
The park is 377 acres (152.6 ha) in size, and typically logs 50,000 visitors per year. It encompasses the cliff, plunge basin and gorge of the ancient waterfall, and a number of secondary ravines and basins
Basin (geology)
A structural basin is a large-scale structural formation of rock strata formed by tectonic warping of previously flat lying strata. Structural basins are geological depressions, and are the inverse of domes. Some elongated structural basins are also known as synclines...
. The lake that occupies the plunge basin of the former waterfall (Glacier or, formerly, Green lake) is 6.2 acres (2.5 ha) in size and 52 feet (15.8 m) deep; it is a rare meromictic
Meromictic
A meromictic lake has layers of water that do not intermix. In ordinary, "holomictic" lakes, at least once each year there is a physical mixing of the surface and the deep waters...
lake in which the deep waters don't mix annually with the surface waters. The surrounding limestone cliffs are 180 feet (54.9 m) high. Hiking trails skirt a half-ring of cliffs surrounding the lake, as well as traversing the rugged limestone over which the old river flowed.
A Nature Center is operated by the Council of Park Friends, which is a nonprofit organization. The Center has exhibits about the park's geology and natural history, and is open from Memorial Day to Labor Day. In addition to staffing the Center, naturalists retained by the Council lead guided hikes in the park. In addition, the park offers fishing, a nature trail, picnic tables and pavilions, a playground, and recreation programs.
The New York State executive budget plan for 2010-2011 called for Clark Reservation State Park to be closed as a budget-cutting measure. The park closings were reversed for the 2010 season by legislation passed on May 28, 2010.
History
Before the arrival of the Europeans, the land around the park belonged probably to OnondagaOnondaga (tribe)
The Onondaga are one of the original five constituent nations of the Iroquois Confederacy. Their traditional homeland is in and around Onondaga County, New York...
people. In the late 18th century, these areas were divided into Military tracts
Central New York Military Tract
The Military Tract of Central New York, also called the New Military Tract, consisted of nearly two million acres of bounty land set aside to compensate New York’s soldiers after their participation in the Revolutionary War....
for soldiers of the Revolutionary War
American Revolutionary War
The American Revolutionary War , the American War of Independence, or simply the Revolutionary War, began as a war between the Kingdom of Great Britain and thirteen British colonies in North America, and ended in a global war between several European great powers.The war was the result of the...
. In 1879, James Macfarlane purchased the area around the fossil waterfall and the lake, and opened a small resort hotel in the park. Macfarlane (1819–1885) was a noted attorney, coal geologist, geological guidebook writer, and enthusiast of the area near Green (latterly Glacier) Lake. The resort's offerings included picnicking, boating, fishing, croquet and archery, but it closed after a few years.
The central part of the current park, amounting to 75 acres (30.4 ha) and including Glacier Lake and the fossil waterfall, was bought by Mary Clark Thompson
Mary Clark Thompson
Mary Clark Thompson , born Mary Lee Clark, was a noted philanthropist and wife of banker Frederick Ferris Thompson.-Early years:Mary Lee Clark was born in Naples, New York in 1835 to Myron Holley and Zilpha Watkins Clark...
in 1915. Thompson had learned that the fossil waterfall was being considered for a limestone quarry; just to the east were the enormous limestone quarries of the Solvay Process Company
Solvay Process Company
The Solvay Process Company was a pioneer chemical industry of the United States in the manufacture of soda ash and a major employer in Central New York...
. Thompson gave this tract to the New York State Museum
New York State Museum
The New York State Museum is a research-backed institution in Albany, New York, United States. It is located on Madison Avenue, attached to the south side of the Empire State Plaza, facing onto the plaza and towards the New York State Capitol...
, with the stipulation that the land be preserved as a memorial to her father Myron H. Clark
Myron H. Clark
Myron Holley Clark was an American politician from the U.S. state of New York.- Biography :Clark was born in Naples, Ontario County, New York on October 23, 1806...
, who had been governor of New York State from 1855-56. Clark Reservation became a state park in 1926.
The ferns of Clark Reservation
Clark Reservation is known for the diversity of fern species which grow there; in a 1994 survey, 26 fern species were identified. The park is presently the principal site in the United States preserving American hart's tongue fern. This fern is quite rare in North America; its presence on the continent was first discovered in 1807 by botanist Frederick PurshFrederick Traugott Pursh
Frederick Traugott Pursh was a German-American botanist.Born in Grossenhain, Saxony, to the name Friedrich Traugott Pursh, he was educated at Dresden Botanical Gardens, and emigrated to the United States in 1799...
at nearby Split Rock
Split Rock, New York
Split Rock is a hamlet in the Town of Onondaga in Onondaga County, New York. Today more a historic place than a community, Split Rock is a site of great interest to industrial archeology. The Solvay Process Company developed quarry operations here, delivering limestone used for the Solvay process...
in Onondaga County. The second half of the 19th Century was a period of popular enthusiasm for ferns that has been called "pteridomania
Pteridomania
Pteridomania or Fern-Fever was a craze for ferns. Victorian decorative arts presented the fern motif in pottery, glass, metal, textiles, wood, printed paper, and sculpture, with ferns "appearing on everything from christening presents to gravestones and memorials."-Description:Pteridomania, meaning...
". Discovery of additional "stations" for hart's tongue, and indeed rediscovery of the original Split Rock station, were subjects of considerable interest in the 19th century. The station near Glacier Lake was first reported in 1866 by J. A. Paine, and several stations are now known within Clark Reservation. Because of its rarity, censuses of the fern in this region of New York have been reported periodically since 1916. In 1989, this species was declared as endangered
Endangered Species Act
The Endangered Species Act of 1973 is one of the dozens of United States environmental laws passed in the 1970s. Signed into law by President Richard Nixon on December 28, 1973, it was designed to protect critically imperiled species from extinction as a "consequence of economic growth and...
in the United States.
The most thriving site for hart's tongue through about 1925 was not Glacier Lake, but a second similar lake about 2 miles (3.2 km) due east. As with Glacier Lake, this lake was known by several names, including Green Pond, Green Lake, East Green Lake, and Scolopendrium Pond. The botanist R. C. Benedict wrote in 1915, "the lake itself is of equal geological interest and, from the standpoint of the hart's tongue fern, is of greater interest than the west lake region because the best specimens in the country grow near the east lake." This lake was threatened by limestone quarrying in 1915 when Benedict wrote his letter to Science, and Benedict had been seeking support for the creation of another state park to protect Green Pond. Clark Reservation had recently been preserved from the same threat. By 1925 the threat to the eastern lake had become reality, and this lake was destroyed by expanded limestone quarrying. Just prior to its destruction, about 1000 hart's tongue ferns were transplanted from its vicinity to Clark Reservation. One author has claimed that the conversion of Clark Reservation into a state park in 1926 occurred because of interest in preserving American hart's tongue. In 1930, a state law was passed protecting hart's tongue fern in Onondaga County and also neighboring Madison County
Madison County, New York
Madison County is a county located in the U.S. state of New York. As of the 2010 census, the population was 73,442. It is named after James Madison, fourth President of the United States of America...
; nonetheless, destruction of habitat in the nearby Rock-cut gorge had destroyed still another station of these ferns by 1945.
Geology
Wisconsin glaciation
The last glacial period was the most recent glacial period within the current ice age occurring during the last years of the Pleistocene, from approximately 110,000 to 10,000 years ago....
). A few miles west of Clark Reservation, glacial Lake Cardiff occupied the deep, Onondaga trough. Just east of Clark Reservation lay a similar glacial lake occupying the Butternut trough. Both troughs run north-south, aligned with the advance and retreat of the ice sheets that have scoured New York.
The retreating ice sheet blocked the northern ends of both glacial lakes, so as Cecil Roseberry describes, "The southern environs are furrowed with rock channels slashed by torrents of glacial meltwater seeking an escape route which they finally found to the Mohawk Valley." These rock channels are now called "the Syracuse channels". Because the elevation of the land in this region generally decreases from south to north, a series of channels was created by the northerly retreat of the ice sheet; each succeeding channel is lower, and more northerly, than the previous one. Smoky Hollow, which is a gorge lying about a mile south of Clark Reservation, was an early channel created by flows of water from Lake Cardiff into the Butternut trough when the ice sheet still covered the present Clark Reservation. The threshold for water to flow through this channel is at 790 feet (240.8 m) above sea level. As the ice sheet retreated, the waters found a new, lower channel running through Clark Reservation, with a channel threshold of about 720 feet (219.5 m). A waterfall formed, and its plunge pool ultimately became Glacier Lake. As the ice retreated further northward, a still lower channel (Rock-cut channel) was carved where Interstate 481
Interstate 481
Interstate 481 is an auxiliary Interstate Highway that serves as an eastern bypass of Syracuse, New York, in the United States. It begins at its parent, I-81, in the city's southern end and travels through the eastern Syracuse suburbs of Jamesville, DeWitt, and Cicero before rejoining I-81 in...
is currently located (channel threshold of about 550 feet (167.6 m)). The channels at Pumpkin Hollow, Meadowbrook, and at Green Lakes State Park
Green Lakes State Park
Green Lakes State Park is a New York State Park located east of Syracuse in the Town of Manlius. The park is strikingly scenic, and has a "masterpiece" golf course designed by Robert Trent Jones very early in his career. Green Lake itself is perhaps the most studied meromictic lake – one in...
have the same origins. Roseberry writes, "The abandoned gorges indicate a complex series of glacial rivers parallel to the receding ice front, producing waterfalls when they dropped over north-south ridges."
The 180 feet (54.9 m) relief of the fossil waterfall at Clark Reservation is somewhat larger than that of Niagara Falls
Niagara Falls
The Niagara Falls, located on the Niagara River draining Lake Erie into Lake Ontario, is the collective name for the Horseshoe Falls and the adjacent American Falls along with the comparatively small Bridal Veil Falls, which combined form the highest flow rate of any waterfalls in the world and has...
(174 feet (53 m)). As at Niagara Falls, the well defined falls occurred because of the presence of a capstone layer of limestone
Limestone
Limestone is a sedimentary rock composed largely of the minerals calcite and aragonite, which are different crystal forms of calcium carbonate . Many limestones are composed from skeletal fragments of marine organisms such as coral or foraminifera....
that was resistant to erosion by the flowing river.
Roseberry writes that this "limestone is deeply waterworn and fissured, mutely telling the force of the deluge which hurled itself over the brink." The limestone shelf leading to the precipice at Clark Reservation is an example of a "karst
KARST
Kilometer-square Area Radio Synthesis Telescope is a Chinese telescope project to which FAST is a forerunner. KARST is a set of large spherical reflectors on karst landforms, which are bowlshaped limestone sinkholes named after the Kras region in Slovenia and Northern Italy. It will consist of...
" topography created by water's dissolution of limestone and related rocks. Among its features is a deep depression in the limestone that is known as Dry Lake. Dry Lake is about 12 metres (39.4 ft) deep and occupies 2 hectares (4.9 acre), and offers an unusual habitat for plants. As Franco, et al. report, "It is believed to be a karst feature created by dissolving limestone that formed a sinkhole basin. The bedrock is 300–400 million years old (Van Diver 1985) and its fissures allowed for rapid post-glacial water drainage."