How Glaciers Changed The Greater Western New York Landscape

Look all around you and you’ll see things you take for granted. You think they’ve always been there. They weren’t. In fact, a series of events that occurred thousands of years ago that are responsible for you being right here, right now. What were these events? Click below to watch this week’s episode of the State of Greater Western New York Report.

In the first half of the show, we revisit element of our earlier episode on the rocks of our region (see “Paleontologist George McIntosh on the State of Greater Western New York Report – March 25, 2021”) before explaining the mystery of the typography of the Greater Western New York Region. Why is the upper half so smooth while the southern tier features a ragged rugged landscape? Glacier expert Richard Young, professor emeritus at SUNY@Geneseo explains exactly what happened. And we have excellent maps that show the movement of the glaciers (and which also reveal the surprising change in water drainage patterns).

In the show’s second segment, Professor Young tells the story of how the glaciers formed Mendon Ponds Park and how they changed the course of the mighty Genesee River. Finally, we finish with a rather curious leftover – literally – that helped pave the way to the settlement of the Greater Western New York Region.

Our guest happily answered questions from the live audience. In fact, these are probably some of the same questions you had. Would you like to be a member of our live audience so you can ask our guests questions? Click here to join the growing number of members who share your feelings on StateOf.GreaterWesternNewYork.com because then we can automatically send you the link to watch our shows live.