The park's Geologic Resources Inventory report. Image from the National Park Service's page
Marsh-Billings-Rockefeller National Historical Park lies in the rolling hills just north of Woodstock, Vermont, about 105 km (65 miles) southeast of Burlington, in Windsor County. It was the first national park unit devoted to conservation history and the changing nature of land stewardship in the United States.
The park
| Established | August 26, 1992, as Marsh-Billings National Historical Park |
| Renamed | October 21, 1998, honoring conservationists George Perkins Marsh, Frederick and Julia Billings, Mary Billings French, and Laurance S. and Mary French Rockefeller |
| Size | about 260 hectares (643 acres) |
| Features | the Marsh-Billings Mansion; Billings Farm and Museum; Mount Tom Forest, the oldest continuously scientifically managed forest in the United States; The Pogue, a 5.7-hectare (14-acre) artificial pond; and farm country |
It was home to three generations of nationally significant conservationists, and it houses the Conservation Study Institute, which fosters leadership in conservation.
The rocks
The park lies in the Connecticut Valley–Gaspé Province of central Vermont, on metamorphic bedrock of Silurian and Devonian age, first laid down in an ancient marine basin:
| Formation | Where | Rock |
|---|---|---|
| Waits River Formation and its informal Mount Tom member (Silurian) | much of the park | mostly schist with varying calc-silicates |
| Standing Pond Volcanics (Silurian) | beneath the mansion and around it | metamorphosed sedimentary and igneous rocks |
| Gile Mountain Formation (Devonian) — the youngest | the park's eastern edge, at Billings Farm | hornblende schist, garnet schist and quartzite |
Ice Age
During the Pleistocene — the past 2 million years — glaciers planed down Vermont's mountains and left thick blankets of glacial till across the area. Later deposits include Pleistocene kame terraces and Holocene river terraces and alluvium.
Part of the park's geologic map. Image from the National Park Service's page
A carriage road in the park. Image from the National Park Service's page
Maps and reports
The park belongs to the New England physiographic province. Its Geologic Resources Inventory products and a completed Soil Resources Inventory are in the NPS DataStore. More: the park's pages on glaciers and glacial features and natural features.
Sources
Based on "NPS Geodiversity Atlas—Marsh-Billings-Rockefeller National Historical Park, Vermont," National Park Service, citing Thornberry-Ehrlich (2011), Thompson (2006) and DeSimone (2006); a work of the United States government in the public domain.
In these publicationsMarsh - Billings - Rockefeller National Historical Park
Licence: CC0 1.0 (public domain) · Adapted from www.nps.gov
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