Geologic Timeline of the Lake Champlain Basin

Grenville Orogeny Iapetus Ocean Green Mountains Adirondack Mountains Ice Age (Pleistocene) Lake Vermont Champlain Sea Lake Champlain ~1 Billion Years Ago ~500 Million Years Ago ~450 Million Years Ago ~100 Million Years Ago ~ 2.5 Million Years Ago ~20,000 Years Ago ~13,000 Years Ago ~9,000 Years Ago

Glacial ice over 1 mile in thickness The weight of glacial ice As the Earth’s surface The collision of tectonic plates A rupture in the Earth’s crust The collision of tectonic plates Heat from the Earth’s interior A large lake called Lake covered the Adirondacks and Green depressed the land and rebounded from the within the Earth’s crust created and uppermost layer of the caused the closure of the sparked the opening of the Vermont formed in the Mountains. allowed sea water to flow removal of the weight of mountains where the Adirondacks mantle caused the continental Iapetus Ocean and uplifted the Atlantic Ocean which uplifted the area between the ice to the Green Mountains. Adirondacks, rejuvenating these north and the glacial south through the St. glacial ice, the connection currently exist. These mountains plates to pull apart. When the Lawrence and Richelieu to the ocean was severed. were higher than the Himalayas are continents separated, magma, ancient mountains. debris to the south as the River into the Champlain today (~20,000 ft). erupting from Earth’s interior, glacier retreated to the formed new ocean full of rapidly north. Valley, forming the The waters of the evolving life. Champlain Sea. Champlain Sea gradually freshened and Lake Champlain formed.

Charlotte Whale White beluga whale skeleton discovered in Charlotte, VT 1849