Ice Age and Manhattan

See how the Ice Age built Manhattan's skyline! Learn about schist, bedrock, and Ice Age deposits.

The Power of the Planet Manhattan, in the centre of New York, has some of the tallest buildings in the world, all thanks to the Ice Age. Why? Watch this video and find out! The Ice Age remote mountain ranges. didn’t affect only affected didn’t only affect If you look at Manhattan’s skyline, you see two areas with lots of skyscrapers and between them. more skyscrapers lower buildings ice 20,000 years ago, an ice sheet covered . most of the northern hemisphere New York Manhattan When the ice retreated, it / / a hard bedrock called schist. covered exposed deposited are built into this schist. The foundations of skyscrapers Mines Tunnels The Manhattan skyline dips in the middle because the ground there is . schist mud and soil ice Put these sentences in order (1-6, do NOT use dots!). 2 Manhattan was covered by an ice sheet.1 The Ice Age began.5 Foundations of skyscrapers were built into this rock.3 The Ice Age ended, and the ice retreated.6 Manhattan’s skyline was filled with skyscrapers.4 Hard bedrock was exposed. Complete the summary. 20,000 years ago, Manhattan was at the edge of a vast ice sheet. The ice was so high it would have towered over modern skyscrapers. When the Ice Age ended, the ice retreated and exposed a hard bedrock called schist. Today, we can build skyscrapers on this schist because it is solid enough for sinking deep foundations to support them. There is one area where the skyline dips and there are only low buildings, not skyscrapers. That’s where the ice sheet deposited mud and soil, which is too soft for building skyscrapers. Match the vocabulary with the correct definition. to dip to go down slightly to deposit to put something in a particular place to retreat to move backwards to expose to uncover soil soft, loose earth on the Earth’s surface a skyscraper a very tall building bedrock a hard layer of rock under the soil a hard layer of rock under the soil the base of a building