Long
Island History:
Long Island New York has had numerous natural events occur to form its shape and fragile ecosystem. It was not always the separate piece of land it is today. Originally, its base was part of Southern Connecticut, which slid under Long Island. The middle layer was formed during the age of the dinosaurs as a result of deposits left by ancient rivers. These deposits were sand, clay, and gravel. The top layer of Long Island was made by large sheets of ice called glaciers. These were formed when snow fell but it was too cold to melt, which created blocks of ice.
The first glacier came 60,000 years ago named Wisconsian Glacier and was followed by another glacier 21,000 years ago. It moved south across Canada and Northern America. It sharpened peaks of mountains, carried boulders, rocks, gravel, and soil in a frozen wall of ice hundreds of feet high. Large amounts of debris were deposited in mounds of hills stretching from Brooklyn to Montauk. This area is known as the Ronkonkoma Terminal Moraine. This glacier also created great rivers, making vast flatlands from the moraine to the Atlantic Ocean. This was the Hempstead Outwash Plain. Temperature affected the creation of Long Island greatly. In the Northern Hemisphere warm and cold temperature gaps lasted tens of thousands of years. After the first movement of the glacier, it melted back. The sea level raised most likely separating Long Island from the mainland.
About 40,000 years later, the climate cooled again. The glacier advanced to almost the same position staying along the North Shore. When it began to melt, another moraine was deposited. This point runs from Brooklyn Heights to Orient Point. Because of the reappearance of the glacier, Long Island is not completely hilly like the North Shore instead Long Island is a combination of both surfaces. The way in which Long Island was formed resulted in two different terrains namely the North Shore and the South Shore. The North Shore contains many bays, harbors, especially in the western section and small irregular hills with swamps and ponds fill the areas in between. The South Shore was a flat outwash plain which is now made of mainly sand and gravel and slowly slopes to the sea. From Rockaway to Montauk Point is seventy five miles of sandbars and beaches with several inlets. The difference in the island's geography was a result of only the North Shore being covered with ice.
The Long Island Sound has a history too. Small islands were created to serve as a barrier between the mainland and ocean storms. These storms created salt water lagoons. The growth of salt marshes served as a breeding ground for vegetation and sea creatures. The barrier islands enriched the bay floors and shoreline and brought nutrients for the marine life. The shores of Long Island produced shell fish for early inhabitants. For once, the productive place for life has many environmental problems. Most of the pollution that is deposited in the Sound comes from Long Island and Connecticut. As a result of pollution, much of the Long Island Sound has acquired a disease called hypoxia (lack of oxygen in water). It occurs when too many nutrients, such as nitrogen in fertilizer and human waste, cause algae to bloom which result in closed beaches, massive fish kills, and decreasing marine life.
Long Island gets its water from underground reservoirs. It all begins when rain and snow seep into the soil and flow through layers of sand, gravel, and clay, called aquifers. These make up Long Island's underground reservoir. The ground water flows through the reservoir at speeds averaging one foot per day. Water at the top of the reservoir fills the island's rivers and streams. The rest of the water that flows downward is the source of most of the island's drinking water. Thousands of wells tap the reservoir and pump more than four hundred million gallons per day. Long Island underwent many natural events that made it what it is today. It took thousands of years to create the present habitat that people and animals occupy. It is a beautiful place and people need to be aware of the needs of the Long Island environment.
|
