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Welcome to the newest Town of Warwick park opened in late 2015 and named Wickham Woodlands. The town purchased the land from the State of New York and is in the process of redevelopment for mixed recreational and commercial use.
The park sits in the middle of the Warwick Valley, geologically a broad, flat floor of limestone with folds of older rock rising through it and forming features such as Sugarloaf Mountain to the north, Bellvale Mountain to the East, and Warwick Mountain to the South.
A survey documented in 1895 in "Geology of Orange County" by the New York State Geologist James Hall and Heinrich Ries noted "folding and faulting have produced numerous and local complications" and describes rock of nearly every geological era exposed within Orange County. The great ridge to the east of this park stretches from the south in New Jersey through Skunnemunk Mountain ending near Newburgh. The upper payers of rock on this ridge are from the Devonian period about 360-416 million years old. The eastern edge of the ridge marks a fault where much older rock is exposed as rounded hills where the surrounding layers were ground away by glaciers in the relatively recent pleistocene period. Examples of the pre-Cambrian gniesses and granite exposed in this way can be seen in nearby Sugar Loaf Mountain and Round Hill north of Monroe.
The upper layer of earth in this valley and others like it where the current shape was carved by glaciers, is sand, gravel, boulders and clay which can be hundreds of feet thick where it was deposited as the glaciers receded. Another common glacial feature is the "kettle lake" formed when a large chunk of glacial ice took the place of some of the deposits, and left a depression when it later melted.
Glacial deposits like those that fill this valley have a heavy clay content and do not drain well. This keeps water near the surface, while the nearly level but uneven contours prevent natural drainage from creating organized paths. Areas of this park and much of the adjacent land thus consist of soils at the surface that are saturated with water, or have standing water for all or part of the year. Unlike land with more drainage where aerobic decomposition takes place in the soil and supports typical dry-land vegetation, the high water table forces plant life to adapt. Areas where the water table is at or near the surface for enough of the year that only plants adapted to living in water grow there, are know as “wetland.”
The many different situations where this occurs can be classified into marsh, swamp, and mire. Mire can be further classified as bog or fen.
Marsh – Marsh is dominated by grasses, rushes and reeds, and has standing stagnant or slowly moving water covering the surface much of the time. Marsh is often found in the transition between dry land and aquatic surface features such as lakes, streams and ocean. The only woody plants you might find growing in marsh are low shrubs.
Swamp – Swamp is characterized by large woody plants and trees that provide a partial or full canopy to the area, with the water table just below the soil to well above the surface.
Mire – Mire is land where the water table is just below the surface, and where the plants will generate peat as they decay. Mosses are a good example of this type of vegetation. The land might even appear dry from a distance, but on closer examination a hiker might call it “soggy” and all but impassible. Bog and fen are further distinguished by whether the water comes mostly from rain (bog) or surface flow (fen), and therefore the amount of oxygen carried in the water, and the amount of nitrogen and acidity in the soil.
Wetland is an extremely valuable resource in many ways that might not be obvious to the casual observer. Human intervention to drain and reclaim wetland for farming, fuel, or for its real estate value in the last century led to a deeper understanding of the long term impacts, and greater sensitivity to the value of wetland.
The chemical and nutrient content of the earth’s air, land and water are kept in balance to a large extent by wetlands. Wetland vegetation moves carbon between air, plant, and soil and is thus one of the most efficient controls on airborne carbon on the planet. The unique ecology of wetlands is also a source of enormous biodiversity.
As you take a short walk around the trail at Wickham Woodlands, you will observe a variety of wetland both on the park property and immediately adjacent to the walking trail.
To log this cache:
1. (OPTIONAL) A photo of you or your caching team on your visit to the park will be an excellent addition to this cache page. Try not to give away the answers to the questions to keep it fun for everyone!
2. At the initial waypoint, looking southeast describe what type of plant dominates the landscape, and what type of wetland you would call this. Note the horizon when looking in this direction.
3. At the "lake view" waypoint, observe the horizon at a bearing of 50 degrees (magnetic) and describe what you see. How is it different from the horizon you see to the east and south?
4. At the “old farm road” waypoint, look through the tree line in the foreground at the magnetic heading of 225°. What evidence of human intervention can you see, and what can you tell about the soil here. What type of wetland would you call this?
5. As you walk along the old farm road in the area of the waypoint, describe the vegetation and soil on the North side of the road. Which type of wetland would you say this area is?
Please email or message the cache owner with your answers and be discreet with photos to avoid giving the answers away in your post.
Additional Hints
(Decrypt)
Qba'g fgerff gbb zhpu bire rknpg nafjref. Ivfvg gur ybpngvbaf, qrfpevor jung lbh frr, naq jung lbh'ir yrnearq gb ybt guvf pnpur.