NEW YORK ! NEW YORK!

New York & Glaciers? Huh?

Aim: To understand the relationship between glaciers and New York.


Recognise this scene?

Figure 1: Image of the notorious New York Manhattan Skyline

Glaciers have just not shaped remote isolated highlands, they have also influenced landscapes closer to home. In this case: the island at the centre of New York, home to Manhattan.

Here the skyline has a dip in height in the centre, which is a direct result of the the ice age.

20 000 years ago the city was at the edge of the northern hemisphere ice sheet and would have towered over any modern day sky scraper.

Figure 2: Image showing how the ice sheet would have looked against New York.

Once the ice had retreated it revealed solid bedrock known as 'Schist' available to provide foundation material for the towering sky scrapers New York is so famous for. Without this bedrock the buildings couldn't have been built so tall.

Figure 3: Image of New York and it's foundations. 

The image above illustrated the bedrock supporting the city's buildings. The shaded yellow areas are softer material that was deposited by the ice and therefore can't support the skyscrapers that the surrounding Schist can. Hence a dip in the skyline. 

I wonder what other famous cityscapes have been shaped by ice and glaciers? Any ideas?


IN PRACTICE: This case study helps students associate glaciers with landscapes and connects them to some places they may not have thought were associated with ice. It allows the process of learning to ease and may be more interesting then learning about an area they may never of heard of.
 
References:

Information and images taken from Iain Stewart's BBC "Earth: The Power of the Planet"