Limestone Country
Limestone Country * This article first appeared in Volume 6, Issue 1 of “The Crossing’s News” - the predecessor of the Friends of Schoharie Crossing Newsletter Driving around the central Mohawk Valley, you can’t help but notice all the stone buildings. Houses, stores, churches... so many built from limestone blocks. Look more carefully and you will notice old bridges, canal locks, and railroad abutments made from the same stone. Why the abundance? The central “limestone zone” includes all of Montgomery County, roughly Amsterdam to Little Falls. Most of the limestone in this region was laid down about 450 million years ago during the Ordovician Age, when almost all of North America was covered by a shallow sea. The remains of prehistoric invertebrates sank to the bottom and turned into calcium carbonate, or limestone. The latest continental collision formed the Adirondack Mountains and a series of fault lines running northeast and southwest. These fault lines ex...
