Geology.com

Just one more link about Marcellus Shale is here at geology.com. I will also put a link on the right to their web page.

Gas drilling

Something very alarming is going on in upstate NY right now. Yes, it's the gas drilling issue. Companies are paying up to $2500 an acre to lease land for gas drilling. It is not just private land, but public, state land is also being leased.

Click here for the Trenton-Black River activity map by the DEC.

This is coming fast for land that is in the Marcellus Shale area, the area that I have been photographing for less than a year. Current well spacing limits are one per 40 acres. That does not include additional land that will be needed to run roads and pipelines to the wells.

Other areas in NY are currently being reviewed for variances to decreasing spacing between wells. Click here for the link to the DEC website section on the Whitesville Field which includes an additional link to the "map of the proposed Whitesville Field and potential spacing units".

So as not to continue to bore readers looking for information on Native American rock piles, I will include a link to the right of a simple website I found that has lots of links to different groups and news articles keeping track of the gas drilling issue. A link to that site can also be found here. For the next month or two, I will probably not do much blogging about rock piles, due to the amount of leaf cover and my attention being shifted to gas drilling.

Marcellus Shale

Those two small words are going to change the landscape around here forever. Click here for a link to today's article in the Binghamton Press & Sun Bulletin about drilling for natural gas. I wonder if anyone has considered the possible archaeological consequences?

Just off the trail

These pictures are from my last hike in June. Due to the amount of leaf cover and underbrush right now, trail hiking is much easier than bushwhacking. It's hard to see anything in the woods lately, unless it's two feet in front of you.

I managed to find one cairn right off the trail, at an altitude over 2000 feet. It was in a line of cairns that may or may not have served as fence rail holders. The line ended at a corner of a stone wall that ran perpendicular to the line of cairns.

Here are a few of the cairns:




A bit further down the hill, a small spot of rocks all around, which didn't photograph well because of all the green:

But, nearby, a boulder with an interesting arrangement and a large boulder on top that appeared to have been split and pulled forward, similar to another I saw in June in Catskill Park.

A view of the top of the boulder:

A close up of the arrangement in front of the split:

This is a close up of one of the few rocks on the top that is near the tip, or the edge, of the boulder that was split and pulled forward. You can see some of the rocks on all around in the background, which was typical at this little site.

Highland Boy Blog

I'm adding a link on the right to the recently revamped Highland Boy Blog. Stop over there and take a look! Welcome, Highland Boy!!

A hike somewhere in Catskill Park

I am posting the finer points of this hike at the Rock Piles blog. Click here for the link.

Here are some additional photos of rock structures I found in the woods here.

What looked like a standing stone and then a row, connecting it to the boulder in the background:


A nice little spring that ran over a boulder. Lots of stinging nettle here, but fortunately there is also a lot of Jewelweed right next to it. At one point the stinging nettle got me in the hand and the Jewelweed helped get rid of the itch. Here's a quote from Wikipedia: "Young plants were harvested by Native Americans and used as a cooked plant in spring when other food plants were scarce." Click here for the link.

A few arrangements:


Overlooking the small cairn, from the rock pile and/or standing stone just above it:

Part of a rock pile. There were too many leaves to get a distant shot that shows the whole pile well:

This is a different pile, and the whole pile, but the greenery is blocking a good view of all the rocks:

This little spot of fill right next to a boulder is just a few feet to the left of the giant rock pile:

This one, I'm not sure about it being deliberate or accidental, as it's right next to the trail, but it's pretty, nonetheless:

A mishmosh of things

I didn't get out rock pile hunting over the holiday weekend, but got out for a quick hike on Tuesday. I found a few things "here and there", all on the same one hour hike. So, here are some photos.

An outcrop with odd features. To the left:


Walking around to the right of the outcrop, this overhang was in the "back" compared to the last photo:

Then, some rock piles just in front of the outcrop. They were hard to make out with all of the greenery coming in. I believe this is a Manitou stone:

This was just off to the right of the Manitou stone and set back a little:

Further up the hill was a standing stone, but I am not sure if this is natural or was placed upright like this:

It's pretty thick:


And I'm always suspicious when I find smaller stones placed at the base of an upright stone like this:


One rock pile I was able to photograph, not far from that large upright stone:

It seemed like there were more rock piles around up there, but they were so covered in leaves and so vague, I didn't bother to take any pictures.

Then, at the top of a rise, almost like a large hump, at the very peak of this hill, was a lone rock pile. This was, I think, the nicest one I found this day:


But, nearby and down the rise, I also found evidence of barbed wire in some trees and then one short piece of stone row, but it was not in the same line as the barbed wire and it didn't seem to form a "square":

Just, overall, a confusing area. There was water way up there, too, somewhere near 2000 feet in altitude:


But that is what I've been running into a lot lately.