[Bill Menke’s Journal, Rutgers-Columbia Fieldtrip to Maine, June 5-11, 2010].

June 5, 2010. Vadim Levin from Rutgers University and I organized this fieldtrip. We have three goals: to examine a suite of rocks in both the Casco Bay and Baxter State Park regions of Maine; to install two seismometers and to visit the Maine State Geological Survey. Four students are accompanying us: ShuoShuo Han, Charlie Hruska, Lisa Seunarine and Ayda Shokoohii. We drive up from New York, leaving Lamont-Doherty at about 10 AM in a Ford E-350 van loaned to us by Rutgers, and arrive at the Abbott Cottage in Harpswell, Maine at about 5:15 PM. The evening is fairly warm with mostly clear skies.

We spend some time checking out one of the two seismometers that we brought with us and then have a dinner of fettuccini alfredo with chicken. It’s dark now and the stars are shining. We walk southward down Route 123, trying to find a spot where the stars are bright. We walk out onto the Town Dock and gaze across Potts Harbor. The stars are bright, yet there is too much ambient light and too much mist over the water to see the Milky Way. We walk to the end of the Potts Point Association road and stand on the sand near the point. The Merriconeag Sound (western) side of the peninsula is much noisier than the Potts Harbor (eastern) side, owing to crashing waves from the open sea. Except for a glow to the southeast over Portland, the sky is dark and we can see the Milky Way clearly. We look for satellites but spot none. We hear frogs as we pass the little pond across from Graveyard Head Road, but a cursory search with flashlights does not reveal them.

June 6, 2010. The night is clear and cold. The sun is shining at dawn, but the day slowly clouds over. After breakfast, Ayda installs one of the seismometers in the basement of the cottage, putting the sensor on a little concrete pad that I built on a previous visit. Vadim and I examine geologic maps and field guides and plan a tour of Casco Bay’s geology. We start out at about 9:30 AM. Unfortunately, rain has begun to fall and is quite heavy at times. We all wear raingear.

Stop 1. Town Dock, Harpswell. Bedrock is well-exposed on a low bluff next to the dock. We climb down and examine what is mapped as a metasediment of poorly-determined age (preCambrian to Ordovician). It consists of intensely-folded quartz layers in a darker phyllite-grade material. The foliation is vertical and strikes N0E (geographic). Vadim finds a fold that is exposed on both vertical and horizontal surfaces, and which allows us to demonstrate how erosion can create chevron ridges. I find some glacial scratches, striking N15W. The ground is littered with large feldspar and quartz fragments that we trace to pegmatite boulders brought in to make a seawall in front of a nearby house. This stop is right in front of Dallas’ cousin, Ruthie Weeks house. Ruthie, who drives up as we pass, and I exchange greetings.

Stop 2. Potts Point, Harpswell. We walk to the very southern end of the peninsula and circumnavigate the little vegetated knob there. Roses and wild peas are blooming. The rock is the same as at the Town Dock, with the same orientation of both foliation and glacial scratches. Many of the quartz layers are deformed into boudins, looking like a series of sausage links. We find several erratic boulders, presumably of glacial origin, and also a meter-wide basaltic dike. The dike strikes about N5E, but seems to be offset in en echelon steps. We trace it along the beach as far north as Dick’s Lobster Pound.

Stop 3. Lookout Point, Harpswell. The rock of this little knob is mapped as a metavolcanic. It is definitely different than the rock of Potts Point, being more grayish and less brown, and also more of a gneiss than a phillite. The N0E strike of its foliation is the same, however, and like the Potts Point rock, it is full of quartz boudins. We identify some poorly-preserved glacial scratches that strike N0E, a little different than those on Potts Point.

Stop 4. Wolf Neck Woods State Park, Freeport. We have lunch under a wooden pavilion near the main parking lot of the park. The drizzle with which we have been contending has now turned into a heavy downpour. We rest for a hour or so, hoping it will stop. Finally, I decide to have a look around, downpour notwithstanding. I walk down to the beach on the west side of the peninsula and discover a large outcrop of pink pegmatite. This is not what I was expecting, for the peninsula is mapped as the same metavolcanic formation as Lookout Point. A little to the south, I find a spot along the Casco Bay Trail with easy access and with both pegmatite and gneiss. The rain stops as I hike back to the pavilion and the group accompanies me back to the shore. The shore is quite scenic, with a small wooded island, just offshore, sporting an osprey nest high in a tree. The gneiss does not look especially similar to the one at Lookout Point. The pegmatite that intrudes it has a distinct chill margin. A roof pendant of gneiss extends out into to pegmatite.

Stop 5. Bradbury Mountain State Park, Pownal. Our previous stops have all been on Avalonia, a microcontinent that was accreted onto the continent during the Devonian. We now cross the suture, which runs through a marshy part of Freeport and drive through the granites and metasediments of ancestral North America. We hike up to the overlook on Bradbury Mountain, a granitic knob that commands a nice view towards Casco Bay. The rock pavement consists of a white pegmatitie intruded by finer grained white granite. The pegmatite contains garnet crystals and large plates of biotite mica.

We return to the Abbott Cotatge for the night, eating a Trader Joe’s steak for dinner.

June 7, 2010. Today is partly cloudy and without rain. After breakfast, we drive up to Greenbush to a woodlot where we have permission to install our second seismometer. Finding a good spot is a challenge, for the land is very wet. We first walk a power line right-of-way. We find some rock pavement, exposed on the edge of the right-of-way, but deem it too insecure for instrumentation. We then walk through about a kilometer of very marshy terrain to a knoll that would have made a decent site, had it not been so difficult to reach. Vadim and I search around closer to the road, and find a dry spot with a few boulders that we deem acceptable, though not great. Everyone pitches in by hauling tools, supplies and instruments to the site and in helping to prêt it. Charlie, Shuoshuo and I attach solar panels to a tree. Vadim mixes and pours concrete for the sensor. Ayda programs the recorder and Lisa, later assisted by Charlie, makes sandbags. The whole setup takes about two hours. Afterward, we hike over to a rather scenic beaver dam and take photos of it.

We then drive to the Big Moose Inn and Campground in Millinocket, where I have reserved a cabin and a campsite. It is just off Golden Road, on a narrow isthmus between Millinocket Lake to the north and Ambajejus Lake to the south. Ayda, Lisa and Shuoshuo stay in the cabin, called Antique, and Vadim, Charlie and I set up tents in the campground. The campground is empty, today being a weekday early in the season. We choose site LR, near Millinocket Lake. I use my roomy TheNorthFace Mountain 25 tent, since transporting its extra weight is not an issue given the van. Vadim takes a brief swim in the lake and I hike around, walking around the grounds and visiting Ambajejus Lake. The lake is apparently anthropogenic, for the road is build over a low dam. A public boat launch is just opposite the Inn. A sea plane is moored in the lake. We have a dinner of canned stew and egg noodles.

June 8, 2010. In the morning, after breakfast, we drive into Baxter State Park. The day is cloudy and we expect an occasional shower. We are staying at the Daicey Pond Campground, which commands a wonderful view of Mt Katahdin, the park’s largest mountain. I have rented two cabins there, Lady Slipper and Tamarack. These are rustic wood-frame cabins, each with beds, a woodstove and gas lights, but without plumbing or electricity. Ayda, Lisa and Shuoshuo stay in Lady Slipper and Vadim, Charlie and I in Tamarack. We use Lady Slipper’s porch and adjoining picnic area for our kitchen, setting up our camp stoves and water bottles there. The Campground is fairly empty, but we meet a couple who give us directions to a spring, for this campground seems to have no water supply other than the pond, itself.

After settling in and after a conference in the Library (a public cabin overlooking the pond), we embark on a driving tour of the Park, following (for the most part) Perimeter Road. This is the park’s main road, which is unpaved but well-maintained. Its speed limit is 20 mph, so our fifty mile trip takes up most of the afternoon.

Stop 1. Slide Dam Picnic Area. We view the flank of Doubletop Mountain, where several bare patches of granite are exposed. The road follows the meandering Nesowadnehunk Stream. We spend a few moments discussing the workings of meanders and how the sedimentary rocks laid down by meandering rivers can be recognized.

Stop 2. Ledge Falls. We walk around a wide granite pavement that extends across Nesowadnehunk Stream and that hosts a lively cascade. The surface of the granite is in places fluted from the action of the water.

Stop 3. Nesowadnehunk Campground. We refill our water bottles from a spring located near a bridge that crosses Nesowadnehunk Stream. A concrete box with a plywood top has been built around the spring to keep the water clean. The sand at its bottom is fluidized by the up-flow. We have a nice view of Doubletop Mountain, to the south.

Stop 4. Trout Brook Crossing. Our field guide indicates that Devonian mudstone is exposed by the foundation of the highway bridge. The river level is fairly high, so few rocks are visible, but I climb down to stream level and find an outcrop of horizontally-stratified brown shale. The guide indicates that this outcrop is famous for its “large but poorly preserved plant fossils”. I look around for fossils, finding a bed of brachiopods on a boulder by the side of the road. Vadim hunts through fragments of shale on a hillside and finds the plant fossils. They – or at least the ones he finds – are finger-length and finger-width stems. They are black in color, perhaps with some hint of axis-parallel striations. Rain falls while we are at this stop. Fortunately, a small pavilion by the side of the road provides shelter.

Stop 5. South Branch Falls Trail. Our field guide locates the contacts between the mudstone, an ash-fall rhyolite and the granite. Unfortunately, the contacts are not readily accessible. We do, however, visit the rhyolite and infer, by the presence of a waterfall, its contact with the shale. South Branch Falls are a ten minute hike down a side trail. The rhyolite is crudely layered, with columnar joints perpendicular to bedding and with the beds dipping steeply towards the west, forming a series of hogbacks. A stream flows in the notch between two of the hogbacks, forming a waterfall where the rholite runs out.

Stop 6. Beaver Dam and Pond. Recent beaver activity has dammed a stream, causing it to overflow and erode part of the road. The resulting beaver pond is very beautiful, especially in the golden light of evening. We stop and take photos.

Stop 7. Nesowadnehunk Campground. We stop here again to use the bathrooms. A fox crosses the road as we are driving back along Perimeter Road.

Stop 8. A wetland on the Daicey Pond access road. The wetland and Mt Katahdin beyond it are spectacular.

Back at Daicey Pond Campground, we eat a dinner of macaroni and cheese, with tuna and peas. Vadim builds a bonfire in the fire ring and we sit around talking. I sleep on the porch of Tamarack, listening to the deep calls of bullfrogs.

June 9, 2010. After breakfast, we hike on Mt Katahdin. Our goal is to reach an open area that commands a wide view and not necessarily to reach Baxter Peak (elevation 5267 ft). Our location on Katahdin’s southwestern flank restricts our access to two trails, Hunt and Abol. Both start from more-or-less the same elevation, about 1200 feet and both lead to a flattish upland area of the mountaintop that has an elevation of about 4500 ft and not to Baxter Peak itself. Abol is the shorter, 2.8 miles, contrasted to Hunt’s 3.7. Both start out gently but gradually become extremely steep towards the end, with the steepest section of both rising about 1500 ft in just half a mile. My recommendation is that we take Abol, the shorter, since Hunt’s extra mile goes mostly into lengthening the flat section near the base and not into reducing the steepness of the section near the top. But there are valid arguments for the alternative choice, of course. The day is wonderful. Clear and cool, with some high, puffy clouds.

We sign in at the guest register at the ranger station at Abol Campground and start up the trail. I think of the ascent as having six stages. First, we walk along an easy, dry trail through tall woods. Second, the trail becomes a little steeper and quite a bit wetter. Walking from boulder to boulder rather than on the wet ground between them is advantageous. Third, the trail becomes quite a bit steeper, through low and open woods, and with a bed consisting of boulders interspersed with gravel. Here we begin to have fantastic views of both the surrounding country and of the upper parts of My Katahdin, itself. Fourth, the trail follows a very steep bare scree slope (not natural, I think, but created by the trail itself). It too consists of boulders and gravel, but the boulders are bigger and the gravel is in smaller patches. We stop numerous times for brief rests, sometimes stretching out on large boulders overlooking the lakes and forests below. I recited an often-told story from my youth; of how I, while struggling up the steep side of the Grand Canyon of the Colorado, was passed by an old woman who taught me the advantage of taking small steps on steep upgrades. Only four of us, Charlie, Lisa, Shuoshuo and I, continued onto the next segment. Vadim and Ayda were content to admire the view from a sheltered spot at the top of the fourth. This fifth section was extremely steep and through very large boulders. In several places we had to pull ourselves up meter-high rock ledges, where a fall, however unlikely, might have proved fatal. This was the only part of the ascent that worried me, for I had not observed my companions even in these tough conditions. As it turned out, we all did well and reached the sixth, upland section without incident. On this section we were passes by a group of athletes in running shoes.

The upland area of Katahdin is fairly flat and rocky, with a little low vegetation. We could see Baxter Peak, about a mile away, at the top of what appeared as a rolling hill. We did not venture far into the uplands, but rather stood near a set of cairns near its edge and admired the terrific views. We were the only hikers in our immediate vicinity, though we could see other groups of hikers at the equivalent position to ours on the Hunt Trail. After about fifteen minutes, we started back down.

The trip down was tedious. I found it easier than the ascent but slower than I had hoped. We met up with Ayda and Vadim by their sheltered rock ledge, rested a bit, and then slowly hiked down and off the mountain.

We saw numerous interesting rocks while on Katahdin: white granite near its base and the pink granite near its summit; xenoliths of black gneiss in the granite; numerous fragment of the same mudstone we had seen at Trout Brook Crossing, including some found by Shuoshuo containing brachiopod fossils; boulders with contacts between granite and metamorphic rock; pegmatite veins; etc. We also saw several hawks and one crow. The crow slowly sailed down the scree slope, wings cupped, feet outstretched, looking (or so I suppose) for food.

We signed out at the ranger’s station and then headed back to Daicey Pond. Evening was settling in as we reached our cabins. We rested a bit and watched the sun on the lake, sighting a bullfrog and several bullfrog tadpoles near the shore. After having a snack, we boated on the pond, using canoes and kayaks that we rented from the park. Ayda and I took out a canoe together. We paddled around the pond, passing numerous granite boulders and lily pads. I also swam a little in the lake, demonstrating to Ayda how a canoe may be safely exited and re-entered. Lisa, originally in another canoe, was also interested in this procedure, so she and Ayda swapped places and both Lisa and I practiced it. I then tried to double-up on a little kayak that Charlie was paddling. Unfortunately, it was too small to sustain our combined weight and foundered. I later got in it alone and hand-paddled it around for a bit. I was, of course, already wet from the swimming, so all the splashing about caused me no concern. The water was seasonably warm, but the air was getting rather chilly as we wrapped our paddling up.

We cooked a dinner of spaghetti and sauce, with pepperoni and parmesan cheese. Lisa and Vadim cooked a side dish of onions and green peppers. After dark, we sat around a campfire, talking. Once again, I slept on the Tamarack porch, to the serenade of bullfrogs.

June 10, 2010. After a breakfast of eggs and pancakes, we packed up and headed back to Greenbush, where we checked up on the seismometer. We had been concerned that the concrete would settle and throw off the level of the sensor, but actually it was fine. The recorder showed an anomalous saw tooth signal from the sensor, however. We puzzled over it for a bit, but could find no obvious reason for it. We recycled power to the sensor, which seemed to fix it, closed up the installation and hoped for the best. We also covered the installation with poultry netting (a.k.a. chicken wire), which we had purchased in as we passed through Millinocket, to deter animals.

We drove to Augusta for our appointment with Robert Marvinney, Director of the State Geological Survey. We spent a pleasant forty minutes with him, discussing plans for future seismological research in Maine. Then we headed back to the Abbott Cottage in Harpswell, where we ate another Trader Joe’s steak and spent the night. Vadim had determined that a magnitude six earthquake had occurred in Vanuatu while we were in Baxter Park, so Ayda downloaded the Harpswell seismometer. The surface waves were clearly recorded, but the body waves less so, probably because of the great distance to Vanuatu. We also puzzled over numerous high-frequency spikes on the record.

June 11, 2010. We ate a breakfast of oatmeal, cleaned the cottage and packed up the van for our return trip to New York. We also solved the mystery of the high-frequency spikes. They are due to construction nearby the Cottage. We arrived at Lamont-Doherty at about 5:15 PM, having travelled a total of 1296 miles over 7 days.