Stb Rock Outcrops

A few weeks ago I was wondering about the unusual rocks along a stretch of the Paugussett Trail in Monroe, even before I read the CFPA trail description that identified an old silver mine in that very spot. I took a look at the USGS bedrock geology map (click to enlarge) and learned there is a rock formation called the Straits Schist Basal Member, abbreviated Stb on the map and shown in orange. The Stb formation is defined as a gray schist with amphibolite, marble and quartzite and is known for containing metals.

This is the same formation that pops up at Old Mine Park in Trumbull, location of a former Tungsten Mine. Back in the 1990's they were blasting nearby to build a corporate park and rock hounds were going in on the weekends to see what they could salvage of the metal-bearing rock (I collected a crate of rocks myself and will be using one for my first rock stash).

This photo is a close-up of one of the Trumbull rocks I collected in the 1990's at the corporate park blasting site. The face of the rock was coated with pyrite (fool's gold). Click to enlarge so you can see it better. The Stb formation has metals in it due to geothermal activity. Water came from magma carrying metals and dropped those metal into the surrounding country rock as it cooled. Theoretically, anywhere you see the Stb symbol on the geological map would be a place to look for metals such as copper, silver, gold, tungsten, etc. The metals might be elemental (and look like a metal) or they might be in the form of a mineral. Pyrite is a mineral composed of iron-sulfide.

The formation is also highly visible along the Paugussett Trail in Shelton in the north end of Indian Well State Park, just south of the aqueduct. All of these locations have enormous boulders with an unusual appearance, some creating caves (I recently heard in passing that the Indian cave in Monroe is "missing" but used to be the site of Indian soapstone quarrying. The entry collapsed and now people can't find it.) This photo shows one of many huge boulders on the Paugussett in Shelton. The aqueduct that cuts through the area has lots of interesting freshly broken rock if you are crazy enough to risk sliding down the hillside looking for them (guilty).

This photo shows the Stb formation in Monroe along the Paugussett at the silvermine. The mine is located in the East Village section of the trail where the trail descends into a hemlock ravine with the Boys Halfway River right next to the trail. I found some marble and possibly silver nearby (I didn't have a hand lens with me, but it sure looked like silver so I dropped it in a letterbox I was planting in the area).

Charles Island, Milford

What a blast we had walking the gravel bar out to Charles Island in Milford today. We timed it just right, arriving just as the pathway became exposed by the receding tide (an hour and 15 minutes before low tide). People get stranded out there all the time so it's important to arrive as the tide is still going out.

We were looking for our typical forms of "treasure" out there (which we found). We also saw lots of deer, brant, distinctive green serpentine boulders, and some interesting old fieldstone ruins. There are tales of buried treasure (Captain Kidd) and ghosts. In fact, we ran into an interesting fellow out there who told me all about the phenomena he has seen on the island.

The interior of the island is closed from May to September for nesting herons and egrets, although at low tide you can still do a nice loop along the shore of the island, as we did today. I picked up a nice rock for some "rock stashing" I plan on doing soon.

Bobby Returns

The bobcat at the end of English Lane in Shelton returned today, and this time Bridget Kelly was able to grab a better camera. What a beautiful creature!

Another Bobcat

These photos were taken in New Milford from someone's house, and forwarded to me by Adam from Newtown. Bobcats really are amazingly beautiful and graceful animals. You get a sense of the bobcat's power looking at these photos. Although they prefer to eat rabbits, you can see how they are capable of taking down the occasional deer.

Bobcat on English Lane

This picture of a bobcat was taken at English Lane by Bridget Kelly yesterday. I've had lots of people tell me about bobcat they have seen in Shelton, but this is the first time someone was able to cough up a photo. Well done, Bridget! I hear about bobcats most often in the White Hills, the Nell's Rock area, and Pine Rock Park, along the lower Far Mill River (that one is said to screech at night). Last year a Conservation Commission member watched a large bobcat stalk some deer in his backyard near Indian Well S.P.

Bobcats have very large territories, depending on the food supply and gender, that range from 6 to 60 square miles, and they follow a circuitous route that may take days to complete. So a particular bobcat seen in the White Hills might also be seen in another part of town, or even in some other town.

Watch your pets, folks! Bobcats are known to attack cats and small dogs. As you can see, though, they are beautiful animals.

Tree Eating Itself

This old maple tree on the Paugussett Trail in Monroe appears to be eating itself. The tree center rotted into dirt about six feet up, and you can see the tree has actually put roots down into the dirt. Hey, whatever works.

Mohegan Lake, Fairfield

The 170-acre park at Mohegan Lake in Fairfield is heavily used by dog owners, since they can take their dogs off-leash. There were about 20 cars in the parking lot today, in the middle of February, and most everyone had dogs. It's a beautiful park, although there is an unfortunate amount of erosion from the heavy use. The top photo shows a nicely done foot bridge over yet another "Mill River" (how many Mill Rivers are there in CT?).

There are two reservoirs formed by the damming of the Mill River, with trails encircling both water bodies. Here the river flows into the larger reservoir.

This last picture shows the mini "pine cones" of alder. These tall shrubs create thickets along the shores of ponds and "fix" nitrogen with their roots.

White Hills Pheasant

This ring-necked pheasant was spotted by George Magdon off of Birdseye Road in the White Hills of Shelton. Pheasant are not native to the US (they originally came from Asia) but they have naturalized in agricultural areas, and are also sometimes stocked for hunting. It's a bird of farms, not forests, more often seen in the Midwest.

Winter Feeding

Survival is tough this time of year, especially with all the snowfall we've had. The picture above, taken on Buddington Road, shows exactly how high the deer can reach. In the winter deer "browse," which means they eat the ends off of twigs. In the summer they are more likely to "graze" on herbaceous wildflowers or grass.

The second picture, taken at Bicentennial Park in Berlin, shows where a squirrel punched through a very hard, crusty snow (probably by chewing a hole in the ice), found an acorn under the hole, and then left the acorn shell on the snow, which was about 6 inches deep. They used to say that squirrels remember where they buried their acorns, but now they say they just smell them under the snow. The Shelton area had very few acorns this year and I imagine the squirrels are desparately hungry right about now.

Mondo Pond, Milford

Lots of waterfowl were congregating in what little open water remained at Mondo Pond (it was 22 degrees when I took the photos). It made for quite a show. The top photo is a little hooded merganser eating a fish (a sunfish, I think). Compared to the ducks, these birds are zippy, skittish, and you might see them diving.

This photo shows a couple of Canadian Geese, a Mallard Duck (yellow beak), and a Ring-Necked Duck (in the back). There was also a Swan and some Sea Gulls. Here are some more photos.

I accessed the park from the grade school on West Ave. There's a nice wide trail, but condos were built unfortunately close to the shore and trail, and it looks like condo residents have been clearing the narrow buffer between them and the trail (which looks like it's city property) so they can get a better view. Of course, that means hikers feel like they're passing through their living rooms. Which leads me to wonder: If trail users started mooning the condo owners, would the buffer strip still get cut?