- Agassiz Rock
Agassiz Rock is a park in
Manchester-by-the-Sea, Massachusetts that is owned and maintained byThe Trustees of Reservations . It takes its name from two dramatic examples of largeboulder s plucked frombedrock and carried by theglacier s.As the glaciers scoured this landscape, the mass of bedrock forming the hill proved more resistant than the surrounding soil, forcing the bottom of the glacier up and over the hill. The north side was smoothed and the south side left steep and rugged as the glacier broke off chunks of rock as it passed.
A short loop trail leads up "Beaverdam Hill" where Little Agassiz Rock appears as a giant
granite monolith silhouetted against the sky. It rests precariously on a small jagged stone, leaving an opening below.A short distance away, other boulders lie perched on the edge of this glaciated upland. Below, in a small
shrub swamp , rests thirty-foot-tall Big Agassiz Rock. How far it extends underground is unknown.The is a one mile moderately difficulty loop trail that passes both Big and Little Agassiz Rocks. Following long periods of
rain the immediate area surrounding Big Agassiz Rock often floods.History
In
1874 , a group of students named this site to honorLouis Agassiz , theHarvard University professor who first theorized that the rocks that dotNew England 's landscape were shaped and deposited by glaciers.Agassiz visited the site and found its erratic physical features fit his theory. Prior to Agassiz's theory, it was widely believed that the scattering of rocks throughout New England were the result of
Noah 's flood.the rock is often used as a type example of a Glacial Erratic.References
* [http://www.thetrustees.org/pages/4_agassiz_rock.cfm The Trustees of Reservations: Agassiz Rock]
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