When Glaciers Covered The Earth

Anyone who has ever set foot in Little Neck or elsewhere along the North Shore of Long Island gets to experience the effects from the last Ice Age.

"The island as we know it is actually here because it was the terminal moraine of the continental glacier," said Walter Mugdan, president of the Udalls Cove Preservation Committee.  

According to Mugdan, the terminal moraine, which is the furthest southerly extent of glaciers that once covered North America, formed the unique topography of Long Island's North Shore, depositing much of the discernable geological material in the area.

"If you can imagine a mile thick sheet of ice pushing tons of boulders, gravel, and soil in front of it — like a bulldozer — stretching all the way from the North Pole to Long Island... the remnants of which are now the hills of Little Neck," he said.

Then about 15,000 years ago, the sea level began to rise with the temperatures, further shaping the landscape that we know as the South Shore today.

"This melting ice also shaped the flat lands to the south," said James Trent, president of the Queens Farm Museum, pointing to surveys of Long Island that show the island gradually sloping down to the Atlantic coast.

"As all that ice melted, water rushed across the southern plain, flattening the land and depositing minerals which make the soil still very rich today," Trent said.

Still for Mugdan, and many other Little Neck residents, the greatest legacy left behind by the glacier that helped form Long Island is the hills along the North Shore.

"The south does have some beautiful sandy beaches — but for a rich industrialist wanting to build his palace somewhere, there is something particularly unique about the topography of the northern hills on Long Island,” he said.

So from its valleys and streams to its highlands and harbors, one thing people can agree on is that the hills that dot the North Shore make it the unique place we know today.

“Particularly from a geological perspective," Mugdan said.