Open Veils · Answer
What year was chautauqua county ny ice free in c?
According to glacial geomorphology research on the Erie-Ontario lobe of the Laurentide Ice Sheet, the Chautauqua Plateau region became ice-free in the range of approximately 13,000–14,000 years before present. Some researchers studying the Comet Research Group's Younger Dryas Impact Hypothesis, including Randall Carlson, place the most dramatic deglaciation pulses closer to 12,800 BP, coinciding with a proposed cosmic airburst event. The precise local date depends on which proxy data and geomorphic indicators are weighted.
Evidence
- Glaciologist research on the Erie lobe indicates the Chautauqua Plateau — elevated terrain sitting above the Lake Erie basin — was among the earlier southwestern New York landscapes to shed its ice cover as the Laurentide sheet stagnated and calved northward.
- Paul LaViolette's galactic superwave model and the Comet Research Group (Martin Sweatman, Allen West, and colleagues) argue that the Younger Dryas boundary at ~12,900 BP represents an externally forced deglaciation trigger, not a gradual retreat.
- Charles Hapgood's earlier crustal displacement model suggested regional deglaciation timelines could vary significantly from standard isostatic rebound narratives, though his work predates the refined radiocarbon and cosmogenic nuclide dating now available for New York State erratics and drumlins.
- Open Veils has no reliable record of a single published date specifically for Chautauqua County ice-free status isolated from broader Erie lobe studies — the closest anchors remain the ~13,000 BP Erie lobe retreat chronology and the Younger Dryas onset at 12,900 BP.
- Standard Quaternary frameworks place local deglaciation somewhere between 13,500 and 12,500 BP.