Join professor Robert Titus as he leads us on a geology walk at Clermont State Historic Site. Titus and his wife Johanna are both retired scientists who have become popular science writers, well known throughout the Catskills. They have recently published a book entitled “The Hudson River Schools of Art and Their Ice Age Origins.” The book relates the Ice Age history of the Hudson Valley to the development of its 19th Century art, literature and landscape architecture. 

In short, Robert and Johanna argue that all Hudson Valley culture dates back to the Ice Age. One chapter includes a section about Clermont. The geology of Clermont dates back 450 million years. The bedrock rising east of the mansion takes us back all those years to see the site when it was at the bottom of a marine abyss, similar to the Mariannas Trench in todays’ western Pacific. But there’s more…