T189 The Great Images in Geology II, Additional Contributions in the History and Philosophy of Geology

Tuesday, 3 November 2015
8:00 AM - 12:00 PM
Room 325/326

"CORKING THE BOTTLE" AT STARK'S KNOB, SARATOGA COUNTY, NEW YORK

Paper number: T189-11
Program: Technical Sessions
Time: 10:30 AM – 10:45 AM

Authors

Abstract

Stark’s Knob, a distinctive hill located 2 km north of Schuylerville along the Hudson River in eastern Saratoga County, New York, played a strategic role in the outcome of the American Revolutionary War. Following the Battles of Saratoga, on September 19 and October 7 of 1777, the beleaguered British general John Burgoyne retreated north to a new defensive position at Schuylerville. As the American army advanced under General Horatio Gates, and encircled Burgoyne’s men from the south, General John Stark crossed the Hudson River from the east and, on October 13, established a defensive position in the topographic bottleneck north of Schuylerville between what later came to be called Stark’s Knob and the Hudson River. This strategy, famously referred to as “corking the bottle,” effectively blocked the northward retreat of the British and directly lead to the surrender of General Burgoyne a few days later – an event widely acknowledged as an important turning point in the war.

Mining for crushed rock around the turn of the 20th century exposed the interior of Stark’s Knob revealing its unique nature and resulting in its protection since 1916 as a Scientific Reservation by the New York State Museum. Stark’s Knob, often incorrectly referred to as an extinct volcano, actually represents a unique exposure of an Upper Ordovician fault-bounded block of submarine pillow basalts embedded within a mélange of graywacke sandstones and mudstones a few kilometers west of the frontal thrust of the Taconic allochthon. These mafic rocks likely erupted during flexure of the subducting outer trench slope of Laurentia during Taconic arc collision. A popular field-trip locale, this feature is important not only for its geological significance, but also for its critical position as a topographic high during one of the most decisive set of battles of the Revolutionary War.