Did you ever notice that some land on both sides of the Connecticut River seems to have terraces that are the same height? Do you wonder why you can look straight out from the car dealerships on Sykes Avenue in White River Junction and see planes land at the airport in Lebanon? Is this just a coincidence? I recently got an inkling of what was going on: Blame it on Lake Hitchcock.

16,000 years ago, much of New England was under a one-mile thick glacier. As it melted (from about 16,000 to 12,000 years ago), the melt water backed up in what is now the Connecticut River valley to form Lake Hitchcock. Here’s a slick interactive map. See if you can find the land that would become Lyme.

I found this and more on the Curioustorian site. It has an excellent description of Lake Hitchcock and terrific videos showing lots of details.

And to bring it home to Lyme, we uncovered our own bit of geology here at Loch Lyme Lodge. When digging a couple years ago between Lakeside and Lakefield cabins for the septic system, we got into a beautiful layer of pure clay. That clay is the result of silt and sand deposited by streams flowing into Lake Hitchcock all those years ago. 

Here are two photos: Photo #1 shows brown earth overlying the clay; Photo 2 zooms in to show the horizontal layers – “varves”. These are the annual layers of fine silt deposited in the winter, separated by sand from the summer.

Photo #1 – Six feet of brown earth atop a deep layer of clay

Photo #2 – A closeup of the clay, showing varves (layers about 3" thick)

An abridged version of this article appeared in the Loch Lyme Lodge Post Ponderings newsletter.