#8. The World-Famous Armored Mud Balls of Turners Falls

THINGS TO SEE

As you approach the parking lot from the bike path (with the river to your left), look for two large boulders, about the size of riding lawn mowers. These half-ton blocks of stone are the remnants of the Old Red Bridge that joined Gill and Montague from 1878 until the great flood of 1938, when the bridge was irreparably damaged. All that’s left today are the stone supports on both the Gill and Montague sides. Some years ago, local history buffs and geologist Richard Little noticed unusual round features called armored mud balls embedded in these stones.

THINGS TO KNOW

How do you make an armored mud ball? Golf- to tennis-ball-sized, these dark brown spheroid inclusions originally were chunks of clay that rolled down the hillsides bordering the Jurassic lake (and sometime mudflat) that was once our Connecticut River Valley. As the inclusions rolled, their corners rounded, and they became ball-shaped.

Some of the rolling mud chunks picked up pebbles of hard rock that stuck to their surfaces, as if wrapping the chunks in a protective armor. When the mud balls reached the lakeshore, they were quickly buried by fine mud or sand and preserved for the ages as the Famous Armored Mud Balls of Turners Falls.

A Turners Falls exclusive.

Although not common in the geologic record, armored mud balls from marine environments have been found and are still forming in alluvial fan environments near glaciers or ocean beaches.

But armored mud balls from inland or terrestrial lakes (such as existed in the Connecticut River Valley of the early Jurassic) are found only in Turners Falls.

Here ends our journey through over 200 million of geologic history. Be sure to visit the Great Falls Discovery Center and the resources at the end of this walking tour if you’d like to learn more about the fascinating geology and natural history of our valley.