Along with books on local cultural history, Black Dome publishes trail and field guides, the latest of which is a just-released guide to the Hudson Valley during a very distant time. The Hudson Valley in the Ice Age: A Geological History & Tour, written by popular Woodstock Times columnist Robert Titus and Johanna Titus, translates a topic normally described in arcane, technical terms into language easily understood by the layperson. The book provides a fascinating glimpse of how the advancing and receding ice sheet, which extended to Long Island, shaped the local landscape.
Besides explaining its causes and effects and vividly describing an almost-unimaginable epoch, the book identifies such glaciated features as drumlins, kettle ponds and moraines, with specific examples. Indeed, “We recommend people stick the book in the glove compartment of their cars,” Robert Titus said. “It’s science people can go out and see.”
The authors hook you right away with an aerial view of what is now the Hudson Valley on a specific day 22,130 years ago: a dry, barren expanse of tundra stretching out many miles beyond the current coast of Long Island and New Jersey. They succinctly explain how the shift of continents and variations in the Earth’s orbit and tilt caused the climate to cool, and point out telltale signs of the glaciers in the Gunks, Hyde Park, the Albany Pine Barrens and other areas. Much of the region was inundated with water: Maps show the location of these antediluvian lakes and swamps, including the fertile onion-growing Black Dirt area of Orange County.
Robert Titus, who is a professor of Geology at Hartwick College – his wife is professor of Biology at Dutchess Community College – said that the collaboration reflected the married couple’s growing closeness “as scientists and in our writings.” The only hint of a disagreement (completely lacking rancor) is alluded to in the chapter that discusses the various theories as to what caused the extinction of the mammoths, mastodons and other large herbivores that once inhabited the Valley. “Late at night in geology bars, people debate these things,” Robert said. “We try to be fair in representing the professional views.”
Given the dread currently attending the warming of the climate, one can’t help feeling a sense of irony in the Tituses’ rather ominous descriptions of the invading ice. Titus conceded, “If you hold a gun to my head, I’d prefer to live in a world of a warming climate.”
Both books retail for $17.95 and are available from the Black Dome website, www.blackdomepress.com.
