First year student Harry Maisch IV coauthored a paper entitled “PLEISTOCENE ICE FLOW DIRECTION INDICATED BY TERATASPIS GRANDIS (TRILOBITE)-BEARING ERRATICS FROM THE RICKARD HILL FACIES OF THE SAUGERTIES MEMBER OF THE SCHOHARIE FORMATION (LOWER DEVONIAN)” in Northeastern Geoscience.

ABSTRACT: Glacial erratics belonging to the Rickard Hill Facies of the Saugerties Member of the Schoharie Formation occur scattered throughout the Piedmont of New Jersey and Lower Hudson Valley of New York. Analysis of these erratics identified four specimens belonging to the historically significant trilobite, Terataspis grandis (Hall, 1861). Reconstructions of Wisconsinan glacial ice advance and retreat identify the likely source of the Rickard Hill erratics containing the T. grandis specimens to be a narrow outcrop belt within the Schoharie Valley and Helderberg Mountains. This outcrop belt is a maximum distance of 200 kilometers from where the southern-most T. grandis specimen was recovered. Palynology, lake varves, cosmogenic-nuclide exposure studies and recessional moraines indicate that the final deposition of the Rickard Hill erratics occurred after 18,500 bp.