Haskell Rock, a 20-foot conglomerate pillar in the East Branch of the Penobscot River. NPS Photo by Grace Kirk
Katahdin Woods and Waters National Monument lies in the forests of Maine's North Woods, on the eastern edge of Baxter State Park, about 80 miles (130 km) north of Bangor in Penobscot County. Established on August 23, 2016, for the National Park Service's 100th anniversary, it covers about 87,563 acres (35,435 hectares) of what was once the heart of Maine's logging and papermaking industry.
Its landscape is shaped by the river valleys of the East Branch of the Penobscot, Wassataquoik Stream and the Seboeis River: rolling forest, mountains and wetlands spanning three ecoregions, where northern boreal forest meets southern broadleaf forest — a place to study how climate change affects different ecosystems. People have lived here for nearly 11,000 years, and it has inspired Native Americans, lumbermen, artists, writers, scientists and many others.
A record of ancient seas
The monument's rocks show that the sea covered this area in the periods just after the Cambrian, more than 500 million years ago.
| Feature | What it records |
|---|---|
| Owen Brook limestone, west of the East Branch | calcareous bedrock of coral reef origin, with fossil brachiopods |
| Pillow lavas, near the summit of Lunksoos Mountain | underwater volcanic eruptions |
| Haskell Rock, a 20-foot pillar in the East Branch | conglomerate marking a dynamic shift from volcanic islands to an ocean floor collecting sediment |
| Glacial landforms, scoured bedrock and lake sediments | the intense climate changes since the last glaciers retreated, which shaped today's topography |
Fossils
Fossils are named in the presidential proclamation that created the monument — making it one of only 18 National Park System units whose founding proclamation or law specifically mentions paleontological resources.
All the fossils found here are marine invertebrates, as body fossils or traces. Corals and brachiopods provide most of the variety; the commonest are crinoid columnals — pieces of sea-lily stems — though these are hard to identify to species. There are also sponges, bivalves, snails, trilobites, graptolites (colonial animals living in tiny tubes or cups) and burrows.
Orange-stained brachiopods, the larger one Leptostrophia magnifica, in a piece of Matagamon Sandstone from the monument. NPS photo by Vincent Santucci
The monument belongs to the New England Physiographic Province, sharing its geologic history with a region far beyond its boundaries.
More: Paleontology of Katahdin Woods and Waters (Tweet, 2022), the monument's foundation document (2016), and the NPS Geologic Type Section Inventory (Henderson, 2022).
Sources
Based on "NPS Geodiversity Atlas — Katahdin Woods and Waters National Monument, Maine," National Park Service; a work of the United States government in the public domain.
Licence: CC0 1.0 (public domain) · Adapted from www.nps.gov
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