Goodsell Ridge Preserve – Docent Information Session

Join the volunteer team at the Isle La Motte Preservation Trust this season by becoming a docent at the Goodsell Ridge Preserve! Please join us on Saturday, May 16th at 10:00am at the Visitor Center located at 239 Quarry Road to learn more about this essential role in our guests’ visit to the Preserve. Please wear comfortable shoes for a tour of the Preserve following a meet and greet with current volunteers and a classroom session to learn about the Goodsell Ridge. Email andrea@ilmpt.org for more information.

Volunteer docent positions are available for adults aged 18 and older. A preview of our docents’ work can be viewed below, with special thanks to William Alexander and Dave and Barb Sweet.

Welcome

The Goodsell Ridge Preserve and the Fisk Quarry Preserve are important sites of the 460 million year old Chazy Fossil Reef, protected for education, research, and public appreciation. They are owned by The Isle La Motte Preservation Trust (ILMPT) with conservation easements co-held by the Lake Champlain Land Trust and the Vermont Housing and Conservation Board. In 2009 these and several other sites received the designation of National Natural Landmark from the United States Department of the Interior and the Department of Parks and Recreation.

Goodsell Ridge Preserve

The trails of the Goodsell Ridge Preserve, located at 239 Quarry Road, are open year around. The Walk Through Time Trail almost a mile in length is lined with a series of panels, installed seasonally, which tell the story of life on Earth. Another series of interpretive signs are installed at our seven fossil Discovery Areas describing the fossils to be found in these particular rock outcrops. Six of the fossil areas feature interpretive signage that identify representative fossils etched in the reef rocks and describe relevant science concepts. The seventh area contains a massive boulder, carried by glaciers in the last ice age, twenty to thirteen thousand years ago. A visitor center is housed in a renovated dairy barn on the Preserve and is open to the public late spring through early fall. The building houses fossil exhibits and interpretive displays which tell the story of the ancient fossil reef. It has also served as a venue for concerts and art exhibits which support our conservation mission.

Fisk Quarry Preserve

The Fisk Quarry Preserve, is a 20 acre preserve located at 4088 West Shore Road, where fossils in the rock floor of the old quarry include the spiral shaped gastropods. White forms in the walls of the old quarry, known as the oldest quarry in Vermont, are fossils called stromatoporoids. The Fisk Quarry was the first acquisition of the Isle La Motte Preservation Trust which took place in 1998 in partnership with the Preservation Trust of Vermont and has been a favorite destination for geologists for many years.  The rock is composed of the Chazy Fossil Reef, which is the bedrock of the entire southern third of Isle La Motte.  It is limestone, which, when polished, resembles marble. The limestone (marketed as marble) was mined in six quarries on the island during the 19th and 20th centuries. The Fisk Quarry was the oldest of these, first mined by the French  in 1666 to make lime mortar for the construction of Fort St. Anne. Active throughout the 19th Century up until about 1919, it was then abandoned as it was no longer profitable. In 1998 the old abandoned quarry was purchased by the Isle La Motte Preservation Trust and is now a preserve.   Fossils from the reef in ancient seas almost half a billion years ago can be seen in the walls and the floor of the quarry.