Remembering Newfoundland

After three days of travel, including an 11 hour, overnight ferry ride, I’m back in Vermont. The trees here look like giants compared to the wind beaten spruce along Newfoundland’s coast.  VT’s rolling hills are beautiful but I admit feeling a little deprived to no longer be seeing a vast seascape out my window. From now on, I’ll just have to settle for an occasional swim in South Pond to get my water fix.  

One thing that’s the same, in both Newfoundland and Vermont; lots of rocks. Tomorrow I get back to work, walling. I’ll be using stone from a natural scree of stone found under local ledges.  It’s not unlike the stone I saw (thanks to Jack) on top of a hill in Elliston, NL, known as the “Felsenmeer.” Photos are ones I took earlier this month on the Elliston Felsenmeer.

The term felsenmeer comes from the German meaning 'sea of rock'. In a felsenmeer (also known as a block field), freeze-thaw weathering has broken up the top layer of the rock, covering the underlying rock formation with jagged, angular boulders. Freeze-thaw weathering occurs as water that is trapped along micro-cracks in rock expands and contracts due to fluctuations in temperature above and below the freezing point. Felsenmeers are formed in situ, meaning that they are not transported during or after their creation.