BUFFALO GEOLOGICAL SOCIETY INC.
Paul Krohn's Virtual Tour
Originally posted on July 25, 2020
Buffalo Geological Society Member Paul Krohn has invited us to host his “Virtual Tour” articles, originally written for his personal Facebook page. Paul is from North Tonawanda, New York and uses Facebook to share his photos and insight from local places of geologic interest.
Today I went to the Lockport Nature Trail just North of the city of Lockport on the South side of Slayton Settlement Road just below the Niagara Escarpment. It is a very easily accessible place with ample parking near the road and a network of very well maintained trails.
The nature trails take you through gorgeous wooded areas with rugged, rocky terrain leading right up to and weaving on and off of the rock exposures of the ancient Niagara Escarpment. There are many very interesting trees on the site including a couple of extremely large old- growth oak trees.
There are a lot of the typical varieties of woodland flora with moss and ferns covering large areas of the rock strewn terrain. There is a very rocky stream on the site and a small delightful waterfall that was dried up to a mere trickle today given the lack of rain lately. It was markedly dry on the woodland floor as well- parched looking conditions with many brown dead leaves littering the ground. The first pictures are just a few of a portions of the trail itself.
I’ll be posting more next…
There are many extremely interesting trees in the woods here including a couple of huge ancient oak trees that are old- growth and are probably at least 250 years old- perhaps even older. They may well have been here during colonial times- real ” witness trees” if you will.
Another interesting somewhat gnarled tree you will see is the one pictured with a distorted ” face” that caught my eye the first time I ever visited the trail a couple summers ago. I am always on the lookout for the interesting and the unusual. This place is fantastic!
As far as those huge oak trees- the pictures don’t do them justice. You could take five or six large men holding hands around these incredible trees encircling the trunks. That’s how big they are.
The rest of these shots are from other parts of the trail showing all of the gorgeous scenery you will encounter here. The rugged rocky terrain is particularly interesting to me and from a geological standpoint I can interpret that this section of the escarpment was extremely acted upon by glaciation during the last ice age(s).
That is your virtual tour for the day. I highly recommend this place- it is easily navigable and family friendly.
Archived Virtual Tour articles will be posted every Sunday and Wednesday until we catch up to the most recent date.