Eibs Pond Park, located in the Staten Island neighborhood of Park Hill is located in the northeastern section of Staten Island, Eib's Pond is New York City's largest kettle pond which is a depression created over 15,000 years ago in the wake of glacial retreat. Eib's Pond Park Preserve is a freshwater wetland that extends over seventeen acres, and the clay-bottomed pond (it's actually three ponds, two of which are connected by a small waterway) covers an impressive three acres making it the largest kettle pond in New York City. Despite its relatively small size, Eibs Pond Park serves as habitat for over 80 bird species.
A Kettle, also called Kettle Hole, in geology, is a depression in a glacial outwash drift made by the melting of a detached mass of glacial ice that became wholly or partly buried. The occurrence of these stranded ice masses is thought to be the result of gradual accumulation of outwash atop the irregular glacier terminus. Kettles may range in size from 5 m (15 feet) to 13 km (8 miles) in diameter and up to 45 m in depth. When filled with water they are called kettle lakes. Most kettles are circular in shape because melting blocks of ice tend to become rounded; distorted or branching depressions may result from extremely irregular ice masses.
Two types of kettles are recognized: a depression formed from a partially buried ice mass by the sliding of unsupported sediment into the space left by the ice and a depression formed from a completely buried ice mass by the collapse of overlying sediment. By either process, small kettles may be formed from ice blocks that were not left as the glacier retreated but rather were later floated into place by shallow meltwater streams. Kettles may occur singularly or in groups; when large numbers are found together, the terrain appears as mounds and basins and is called kettle and kame topography.
To log this cache
1. Estimate the length and width of Eibs Pond.
2. What do you think supplies the pond to keep it filled? (ex: rain/runoff, streams or the water table)
3. (Optional) Take a photo of you or your GPS near the pond.
4. (Optional) What type of wildlife did you see while you were at the pond.
*All answers must be emailed to me to receive credit for this cache. Do not post the answers in your log. Anyone who does not email me will have their find deleted.*