Geological Society of America

Special Paper 309

1996

The Late Quaternary Construction of Cape Cod, Massachusetts:

A Reconsideration of the W. M. Davis Model

ABSTRACT

Like the W. M. Davis construction of Cape Cod published in 1896, this special
paper suggests that the Cape was formed by glacial deposition during the late Pleis-
tocene and by marine and aeolian processes during the Holocene. It differs, however,
from the Davis model in several significant ways. For example, Davis proposed that
the lower Cape extended 4 km east of its present location, and that only 4,000 yr
were needed for the lower Cape to attain its present form. This study indicates that
the glacial Cape extended as far as 7 km east of its present position, and that it took
about 9,500 yr for the Cape to attain its present morphology. Davis also believed that
the detritus eroded from the sea cliffs on the east side of the lower Cape was trans-
ported northward to form the Provincetown Hook. On the other hand, this book indi-
cates that, as a result of the subaerial exposure of Georges Bank from 9,500 to 6,000
yr ago, littoral drift to the north was inhibited and sediment was transported south-
ward to fill a depression at the Cape’s elbow. Since Georges Bank became submerged
about 6,000 yr ago, however, littoral drift shifted partly to the north, leading to the
construction of Provincetown Hook, a process that is still taking place today. The
bulk of material (86%) eroded from the cliffs along the east side of the lower Cape
during the last 6,000 yr was transported northward. Of the remainder, 7% was used
in the construction of the beaches and offshore bars fronting the cliffs, and the
remaining 7% was incorporated into the spits and barriers south of the cliffs. During
the last 70 yr, the eastern Cape cliffs have been retreating at an average rate of 0.8 m
a–1, a rate enhanced by a relative rise in sea level of about 2 to 3 mm a–1.

INTRODUCTION former glaciated terrain possessed irregularities comparable to

The present morphology of Cape Cod and vicinity in
southeastern Massachusetts is the result of Wisconsinan glacia-
tion of a fluvial terrain and the subsequent modification of this
glaciated landscape, principally by marine and aeolian
processes during the Holocene. In his geographic essay on the
outline of Cape Cod, Davis (1896; see also Davis, 1954) recon-
structed the original glacial shape of the Cape Cod peninsula
by removing the Holocene Provincetown Hook, the Nauset-
Chatham-Monomoy spits and bars, and a few small bars near
Wellfleet, and by excavating the tidal marshes that were filled
during the Holocene near Wellfleet, along the Pamet River and
elsewhere. Cape Cod’s former seaward extension was recon-
structed assuming that (1) subaerial erosion has not affected
significantly the glacial topography since it was created, (2) the
those existing today, (3) the amount of newly formed land is
less on protected than on exposed shores, and (4) cliffs pro-
tected by marshes and bars retreated before the bars and
marshes were constructed in front of them. In his reconstruc-
tion, Davis also assumed that any changes in sea level were
minor, and what changes occurred aided in the expansion of
Cape Cod. According to Davis, the reconstructed glacial and
fluvio-glacial terrain was bounded on all sides by steep cliffs of
moderate relief.
The reconstruction of Cape Cod using the above principles
led to the extension of less than 1 km of land in the bays, more
than 1 km to the west side of the Cape, and about 4 km to the
east side of the lower Cape. Davis estimated that approximately
3,000 to 4,000 yr were adequate to accomplish the coastal
retreat of nearly 4 km on the east side of the Cape. Sediments

Uchupi, E., Giese, G. S., Aubrey, D. G., and Kim, D.-J., 1996, The Late Quaternary Construction of Cape Cod, Massachusetts: A Reconsideration of the
W. M. Davis Model: Boulder, Colorado, Geological Society of America Special Paper 309.

1
2 E. Uchupi and Others
eroded from the northern end of the eastward-facing cliff were
hypothesized to be transported northwestward by longshore
currents to build Provincetown Hook. Concurrent with the
growth of the hook and erosion of the glacial sediments to the
southeast, the fulcrum of shore erosion/deposition migrated
northward, leading to the construction of a new tangential spit
to the north and seaward of the previous one. As these spits
grew northwestward, they curved and fused together, forming
Provincetown Hook. According to Davis, the present morphol-
ogy of the west coast of the Cape was due to a combination of
northwest gales and shore currents that transported the sedi-
ments southward to form the tombolos of South Truro and
Wellfleet prior to the development of Provincetown Hook, and
southwest gales and northerly sediment transport since the
development of the spit. He also believed that some southerly
sediment transport is still taking place in western Cape Cod
Bay today, contributing to the southwest-trending Jeremy Point
and Billingsgate Shoal.
In his discourse on the geomorphology of Cape Cod, Davis
discussed neither the development of the north and south shores
of “upper” Cape Cod (the east-west segment of Cape Cod), nor
the origin of the barrier islands at the southeastern tip of the
Cape. He did not describe the processes responsible for the cre-
ation of glacial Cape Cod, and he lacked offshore and onshore
subsurface data that would have helped him constrain his
reconstruction of the original outline of the glacial Cape. The
effect of change in sea level was considered only in passing and
the roles that glacial loading and unloading played in the cre-
ation of Cape Cod were not considered as their effects either
were not recognized or were not deemed significant. Lacking a
means of reliably dating its sedimentary deposits, Davis was
unable to construct a reliable chronology for the development
of the region. This book applies this new information, coupled
with a better understanding of nearshore marine processes, to
update Davis’s model on the genesis of Cape Cod.
REGIONAL SETTING
Physiography
The Cape Cod peninsula, in the shape of a bent arm, is
located in southeastern Massachusetts. It is separated from the
mainland by a northeast-trending topographic low (Monument
and Scussett Valleys) along which Cape Cod Canal was exca-
vated (Fig. 1). The peninsula’s north shore from the Cape Cod
Canal to 70°15′W is characterized by both erosional and depo-
sitional features, but farther eastward to Wellfleet Harbor the
shore is mainly erosional (Fig. 2). Along the seaward side of
Wellfleet Harbor (Great Island–Jeremy Point–Billingsgate
Shoal) is another zone of deposition that becomes one of ero-
sion slightly north of 41°55′N. This erosional segment extends
to the southern tip of Provincetown Hook, a constructional fea-
ture. From the eastern side of the peninsula on the Atlantic
Ocean side to about 41°55′N (Coast Guard Beach, Eastham),
the coastal zone is one of extensive erosion. Farther south, in
the area of Nauset Beach and Monomoy Island, the Cape’s
shore again is one mainly of construction, characterized by fre-
quent and large changes in shore configuration. The Cape’s
south shore facing Nantucket Sound is a low-energy environ-
ment with most of the shore undergoing erosion, interspersed
with areas of deposition.
The topography of the Cape is dominated by features pro-
duced by glacial, fluvio-glacial, lacustrine-glacial, and aeolian
processes. A belt of morainal topography that dominates the
Elizabeth Islands can be traced to the southwestern heel of
Cape Cod at Woods Hole (Fig. 1). From there the Buzzards Bay
morainal ridge, having a maximum elevation of more than
60 m, extends northeastward toward the east end of Cape Cod
Canal, where it is truncated by the rounded and hilly Sandwich
morainal ridge along the south shore of Cape Cod Bay (Fig. 2)
(Woodworth, 1934a, p. 7, 1934b, p. 238; Mather et al., 1942).
As the ridge extends eastward it gradually diminishes in eleva-
tion, finally merging with the outwash plains in the eastern
upper Cape. North of this ridge is a series of deltaic terrains
associated with a proglacial lake that existed in late Wisconsi-
nan in the present geographic position of Cape Cod Bay.
Descending gradually southward from the foot of the
morainal ridge on the upper Cape is a series of outwash plains
displaying declivities of about 0.2° (Uchupi and Oldale, 1994).
As a result of postglacial marine erosion, the gradient of the
plains increases to about 1° as the plains terminate along the
south shore of Cape Cod. The lower Cape (the north-south seg-
ment that lies northeastward) is dominated by plains that
descend gradually westward in the direction of Cape Cod Bay
and display reliefs in excess of 40 m in the bluffs along the east
coast of Cape Cod (Fig. 2). The bluffs, which are approxi-
mately 30 km long, have slopes in excess of 30° and form a
broad arc slightly convex to the east. Continuity of the cliff face
is disrupted by a series of gaps caused by breaching of the cliff
by east-west–trending valleys (Fisher, 1987). Wave erosion at
the cliff toe and the slides produced by this undercutting have
led to westward retreat of these Atlantic cliffs at rates of about
1 m a–1 during the last 10 yr (U.S. Army Corps of Engineers,
1969). According to Zeigler et al. (1964b), the retreat rate from
1887 to 1957–1958 was slightly slower, about 0.8 m a–1. Miller
and Aubrey (1985), who compared retreat rates on varying time
scales using different measurement technologies, determined
that the rate of retreat for the period 1970–1974 was 0.8 m a–1
and they estimated that the mean recession rate from
1879–1974 was 0.92 ma–1, a value comparable to those of
Figure 1. Bathymetry of Cape Cod and vicinity. From Uchupi (1987).
TT = site of Texas Tower borehole; VC = site of vibracores. Also
shown are the locations of seismic reflection profiles discussed in the
text. Numbers beside locations indicate figure number of profiles.
Inset shows location of Cape Cod and the topography of the southern
New England offshore area. EI = Elizabeth Islands; JP = Jeremey
Point; MV = Monument Valley and Scussett Valley; SP = Squibnocket
Point; WB = Wilkinson Basin; WH = Woods Hole.
Late Quaternary construction of Cape Cod, Massachusetts 3
4 E. Uchupi and Others

Marindin (1889) and Davis (1896). The glacial outwash plain
deposits on the western end of the plains in Truro in the more
protected waters of Cape Cod Bay also are retreating, but at the
much slower rate of about 0.3 ma–1 (Giese, 1964).
Scattered throughout the outwash plains are numerous ket-
tle lakes ranging in diameter from several hundred meters to as
much as several kilometers, with depths of several meters to
more than 25 m (Oldale, 1992, p. 66). Water levels in the kettle
lakes mirror groundwater levels in surrounding deposits. The
lakes are particularly abundant in the Mashpee Pitted plain, the

Figure 2. Surficial geology and distribution of relict spring sapping valleys of Cape Cod. Geology from
Oldale and Barlow (1986); valley distribution compiled from U.S. Geological Survey 7.5′, 1:24,000-scale
quadrangle maps of the region are from Uchupi and Oldale (1994). Also shown are the locations of the geo-
logic cross sections in Figure 6 and the positions of the boreholes in Figures 7 through 10. Postglacial
deposits include fluvial, aeolian, marine, and beach sediments. BB = Ballston Beach; BH = Barnstable Har-
bor; BP = Beach Point (aka Pilgrim Beach); BR = Boat Meadow River; CH = Chatham Harbor; CO = Coon-
amesset and East Falmouth; GP = Gunning Point, Hamlin Point, Flume Pond; HH = High Head; LoP = Long
Point; LP = Little Pleasant Pond; MH = Megansett Harbor; MI = Morris Island; NB = Nauset Beach; NH =
Nauset Harbor; NMI = North Monomoy Island; OAF = Otis Air Force Base (now Massachusetts Military
Reservation); OP = Oyster Pond; P = Pleasant Bay; PH = Phinney Harbor; POH = Pocasset Harbor; PPB =
Popponesset Beach; QH = Quissett Harbor; RBH = Red Brook Harbor; SH = Squeteague Harbor; SMI =
South Monomoy Island; SP = Salt Pond; WB = Waquoit Bay; WFH = West Falmouth Harbor.
 Late Quaternary construction of Cape Cod, Massachusetts
westernmost outwash plain on the upper Cape. Some of these
topographic lows form coastal ponds separated from the open
sea by baymouth bars. A few of them have natural connections
to the open sea (i.e., Waquoit Bay, perhaps Salt Pond in East-
ham, and Wellfleet Harbor), whereas others have been con-
nected to the open sea by manmade channels (Oldale, 1992,
p. 128). The surface of the plains is incised by valleys. These
erosional features are unusual in that they lack modern streams
because the plain sediments are too permeable to encourage
runoff. The valleys tend to be straight rather than dendritic and
have flat floors that are mantled with sand and gravel, short
tributaries, and amphitheater-like heads; they also have retained
their widths for considerable distances. The continuity of many
of them is disrupted by kettles. The valleys also tend to stop
short of the upper parts of the outwash plains where meltwater
sources were located (Oldale, 1992, p. 72). For all of these rea-
sons, Uchupi and Oldale (1994) proposed that the valleys were
eroded by groundwater seeps fed by proglacial lakes (their high
hydrostatic heads led to the elevation of the water table) that
existed at that time rather than by glacio-fluvial meltwater from
the Wisconsinan glaciers as proposed by Wigglesworth (1934,
p. 132), Woodworth (1934b, p. 262–263), Zeigler et al. (1964c),
and Strahler (1966, p. 19).
The valleys are most abundant in the Mashpee Pitted plain
in the upper Cape, where they drain southward toward Nan-
tucket Sound (Fig. 2). Their lower reaches are drowned to form
narrow bays trending at an angle to the present shore. Some of
the bays are located along trunk valleys, and others are super-
imposed on their tributaries. The valleys in the lower Cape
plains, known as hallows or pamets, drain westward in the
direction of Cape Cod Bay. One of them, Pamet River, has been
eroded below present sea level and extends across the width of
the lower Cape from Cape Cod Bay to the Atlantic Ocean
(Fig. 2). Today, Pamet River is separated on the east from the
open ocean by a narrow strip of beach (Ballston Beach) that is
eroded and sometimes overwashed during intense northeast
winter storms, although restored by renewed deposition within
a few weeks after the storm (Godfrey and Leatherman, 1979).
The upper Pamet is separated from Cape Cod Bay by a one-
way valve in a drainage pipe under a local road approximately
100 m west of State Highway 6.
At the elbow of Cape Cod are two major barrier beach sys-
tems, Nauset Beach and Monomoy Island (Fig. 1). West of Nau-
set Beach is a broad low occupied by marshes, Chatham and
Nauset Harbors, and Pleasant and Little Pleasant Bays. Border-
ing the marshes are scarps that may be relict sea cliffs (R. N.
Oldale, cited in Aubrey et al., 1982). Historically, the shoreline
along the elbow of Cape Cod has been subject to frequent
changes in shape and position. The northern tip of the Cape is
dominated by Provincetown Hook made of a series of concen-
tric spits capped by the most extensive dune field in the region.
The hook terminates east-southeastward against the east-trend-
ing former sea cliffs of High Head, which rise nearly 20 m to
the Truro outwash plain. These bluffs mark the northern edge of
5
the exposed glacial deposits of the Cape. North of the cliffs are
two small outliers of the Truro outwash plain that are blanketed
by the dune sands of the Provincetown Hook (Fig. 2). Another
spit is found along the north coast of the Cape, the east-trending
Sandy Neck that protects Barnstable Harbor from Cape Cod
Bay. Capping this spit are dunes second in size to those in the
Provincetown Hook (Leatherman, 1988, p. 36). Adding to the
morphology of the Cape’s landscape are the numerous salt
marshes behind barrier beaches and spits, and along the upland
shores of bays and margins of tidal creeks.
Enclosed within the bent arm of the Cape is Cape Cod Bay
whereas south of the Cape lie Nantucket and Vineyard Sounds
and the Elizabeth Islands, Martha’s Vineyard, No Mans Land,
and Muskeget, Tuckernuck, and Nantucket Islands (Fig. 1). The
Elizabeth Islands are the mostly submerged extension of the
southwesterly trending Buzzards Bay moraine. The latter five
islands are the subaerial segments of the ice-sheet margin that
extends from Long Island (New York), to the Grand Banks of
Newfoundland via Block Island (Rhode Island), Georges Bank,
and the offshore banks on the Nova Scotian Shelf. The islands
are separated from the mainland and Cape Cod by Vineyard and
Nantucket Sounds that have average depths of slightly more
than 10 m. Scattered throughout these sounds are shoals dis-
playing reliefs of about 5 m and aligned in a complex fashion
with the tidal currents of the region. Atop these shoals are
smaller sediment waves generally at right angles to tidal flow.
Southeast and east of Nantucket Island is an extensive area of
shallow topography known as Nantucket Shoals. The area is
dominated by northeast-trending shoals with reliefs in excess
of 10 m parallel to the tidal currents (Uchupi, 1968). Along the
crests of the larger shoals are linear sediment ridges also
aligned parallel to the tidal currents; superimposed on the crests
of the shoals and the troughs between them are smaller waves,
most of which are at right angles to the flood and ebb tidal cur-
rents. As a result of its shifting shoals, some of which are less
than 1 m below sea level, Nantucket Shoals is considered one
of the greatest hazards to navigation in the eastern United
States. Southwest of Nantucket Shoals is the east coast conti-
nental shelf whose smooth surface is broken by erosional fea-
tures such as channels and terraces and depositional features
such as sand swells (Uchupi, 1968). A broad amphitheater
shape low on the outer shelf known as the mud patch has an
extensive fine-grained sediment cover (Fig. 1).
North of 41°20′N, Nantucket Shoals change their orienta-
tion from northeast-southwest to north-south as they adjust
themselves to a change in the tidal current direction. East of
these shoals the bottom contours bulge eastward in the form of
a fan to which the name Fan A is suggested (Fig. 1). Offshore
from Monomoy Island and Nauset Beach, the sea floor is dom-
inated by northeast-trending swells that can be traced to a depth
of about 20 m. Beyond that depth, sea-floor roughness dimin-
ishes to the near 40-m depth, and sea-floor declivity increases
as it descends to the Wilkinson Basin complex in the Gulf of
Maine (Fig. 1). From 41°45′N to 41°50′N, the surface of the
6 E. Uchupi and Others
inner shelf shallower than 10 m is characterized by a ridge-
trough topography paralleling the shore with a relief of several
meters (Aubrey et al., 1982). The outer shelf to a depth of about
40 m and the slope beyond that depth are relatively featureless.
This slope segment between Fan A and Fan C is in the form of
an embayment in the general topographic trend, reflecting a
now-filled depression seaward of Nauset Beach. Although the
construction of Fan B on the upper slope by the sediments fill-
ing the low has led to eastward progradation, the slope in the
low is still not aligned with the slope north and south of the
depression. The shelf north of 41°50′N to the northern tip of
Cape Cod displays the same morphologic features as the shelf
segment farther south, an inner ridge–trough zone in depths of
water less than 10 m, and a smooth outer shelf to the break in
slope at a depth of about 40 m. The slope seaward of the shelf’s
edge consists of a fan (Fan C) whose topographic expression
can be traced to a depth of 180 m (Fig. 1).
The major topographic features in Cape Cod Bay are Fish-
ing Ledge and Billingsgate Shoal (Fig. 1). The elliptical-shaped
Fishing Ledge in the center of the bay has about 6 m of relief,
and the 8-m-high Billingsgate Shoal aligned obliquely to the
west coast of Cape Cod extends southwestward for a distance
of about 10 km. East of Billingsgate Shoal, just south of Jeremy
Point, is Billingsgate Bank, marking the former position of the
island of that name which submerged in 1942 (Leatherman,
1988, p. 82). The sea floor along the western periphery of Cape
Cod Bay in depths of less than 10 m, where basement is
exposed, is quite rough with numerous small highs rising about
2 m above the surrounding sea floor. The sea floor north of
Cape Cod Bay is dominated by the flat-topped Stellwagen
Bank that mimics the general configuration of the lower Cape.
This topographic high with depths of less than 40 m along its
top is separated from the northern tip of Cape Cod by Little
Stellwagen Basin. West of the bank is the deeper Stellwagen
Basin (Fig. 1). The sea floor west of this depression, at depths
of less than 40 m where basement is exposed or thinly mantled
by sediments, is rough with numerous topographic irregulari-
ties displaying reliefs of several meters. North-northeast of
Stellwagen Bank is a plateau-like feature broken into a series
of highs and lows dominated by Tillies Basin (Fig. 1). East of
Cape Cod is the Gulf of Maine, a rectangular depression with
an average depth of 150 m consisting of a series of northeast-
and east-trending basins separated by swells, ridges, and flat-
topped banks (inset map, Fig. 1). Many of these basins have
depths in excess of 200 m, although one of the shoals is just
9 m in depth. The Gulf of Maine depression is separated from
the open sea by Georges Bank with two channels, Great South
Channel east of Nantucket Shoals (Fig. 1) and Northeast Chan-
nel east of 67°W, that serve as deep-water passageways
between the Gulf and the open sea.
Geologic setting
Nantucket Sound and Islands. The basement bedrock
underlying the region consists of Precambrian and Paleozoic
rocks and Late Triassic to Early Jurassic rift system rocks
(Emery and Uchupi, 1984; see also references therein). The
pre–Late Triassic rocks reflect tectonism associated with open-
ing and closing of a pre-Mesozoic Atlantic Ocean, and the Late
Triassic–Early Jurassic structures reflect the breakup of Pan-
gaea and the formation of the present Atlantic. An unconfor-
mity-truncating basement formed from uplift associated with
the final continental decoupling and initiation of sea-floor
spreading in the Atlantic in earliest Middle Jurassic (Uchupi
and Emery, 1991, and references therein). Basement rocks are
exposed only on the Massachusetts mainland and immediately
offshore; on the Cape and the Islands, the basement is buried
by coastal plain and/or glacial deposits.
Martha’s Vineyard and Nantucket Islands (offshore islands
south of peninsular Cape Cod) consist mainly of coastal plain
deposits of Cretaceous and Cenozoic age capped by a thin
veneer of Wisconsinan glacial sediments in the form of out-
wash plains and moraines (Oldale, 1982; 1992, p. 21). On
Sankaty Head, Nantucket Island (Fig. 1), the Wisconsinan sed-
iments rest on marine sediments having a uranium-thorium age
of 133,000 ± 7,000 B.P. and an amino-acid racemization
(AAR) age of about 120,000 to 140,000 B.P., suggesting a
Sangamonian age (Stage 6e) for the deposits (Oldale et al.,
1982; Oldale and Eskenasy, 1983; Oldale and Colman, 1992).
Below the marine deposits is another till, probably of Illinoian
age. This lower till, which extends from Maine to southern New
England and Long Island, New York, indicates that the Illinoian
glaciation (Stage 6?) was at least as extensive as the late Wis-
consinan Laurentide ice sheet (Oldale and Colman, 1992).
Eroded on the Wisconsinan outwash deposits of Martha’s
Vineyard and Nantucket Island is an extensive network of val-
leys that have flat floors and uniform slopes throughout their
lengths (Woodworth, 1934b; Wigglesworth, 1934). The coastal
ponds of Martha’s Vineyard occupy the southern terminus of
these valleys; in Nantucket the valleys are truncated by the pre-
sent shore, with three of them having ponds aligned parallel to
their axes (Oldale, 1992, p. 69). Uchupi and Oldale (1994) have
proposed that this valley network was eroded by seepages from
a Pleistocene-age lake that occupied the present position of
Nantucket Sound. The relief of the islands is mainly the result
of fluvial erosion during several marine regressions extending
as far back as the Oligocene Epoch. During these regressions,
several lowlands (Nantucket Sound, Gulf of Maine, and the
basins on the inner Nova Scotian Shelf) and cuesta segments
(Long, Block, Elizabeth, Martha’s Vineyard and Nantucket
Islands, Georges Bank, and the banks on the outer Nova
Scotian Shelf) were eroded out of the continental shelf sedi-
ments. Vineyard Sound, the channel between Martha’s Vine-
yard and Elizabeth Islands and western Cape Cod, and Great
South and Northeast Channels on Georges Bank, represent
water gaps through the cuesta (Oldale and Uchupi, 1970;
Emery and Uchupi, 1984, and references therein). During the
intervening transgressions the fluvial terrain was partially or
completely buried, to be partially or completely exhumed dur-
 Late Quaternary construction of Cape Cod, Massachusetts
ing the following regression. These episodes of erosion and
deposition account for the gaps in the coastal plain sedimentary
record in the lowlands and cuesta. During the later Wisconsi-
nan glaciation, southward overthrusting of the coastal plain
strata and outwash sediments by an advancing ice-sheet margin
accentuated the fluvial relief of the coastal plain cuesta in the
area of Gay Head, Martha’s Vineyard.
Seismic reflection profiles recorded in Nantucket Sound,
the lowland north of the Martha’s Vineyard/Nantucket cuesta,
indicate that basement in the region is mantled by coastal plain
sediments. The surface of the basement displays evidence of
fluvial erosion (Oldale et al., 1973) with the valleys draining
southward away from an east-trending 50-m high beneath the
upper Cape (Oldale, 1969). A geophysical reconnaissance of
the sound by Oldale et al. (1973) suggested that the coastal
plain strata pinched out some distance south of Cape Cod. A
recent more detailed investigation by O’Hara and Oldale (1987)
indicated, however, that the sediments may extend across the
width of the Sound to at least and possibly beneath the south
shore of Cape Cod. To date, there are no borehole data to verify
the presence of coastal plain deposits beneath the south coastal
zone of the upper Cape. The surface of the coastal plain sedi-
ments beneath Nantucket Sound is cut by an extensive system
of V-shaped channels, some of which may extend through the
sediments onto the basement beneath them. Similar valleys lit-
tle affected by subsequent glacial processes have been recog-
nized as far west as Long Island Sound (Lewis and Needell,
1987; Needell and Lewis, 1984; Needell et al., 1987). Oldale et
al. (1973) proposed that the valleys in Nantucket Sound and the
other sounds were remnants of the fluvial system that carved a
cuesta (Long Island, Block Island, Elizabeth Islands, Martha’s
Vineyard, Nantucket Island, Georges Bank) and lowlands
(Long Island, Block Island, Rhode Island, Vineyard and Nan-
tucket Sounds, Gulf of Maine) out of the continental shelf strata
during one of the preglacial regressions. According to O’Hara
(1981), the fluvial terrain that influenced the flow of the late
Wisconsinan Laurentide ice sheet played a significant role in
the formation and locations of the end moraines. For example,
the moraines in Martha’s Vineyard and Nantucket Island were
controlled by the valley heads as the ice advanced against the
preglacial fluvial divide, and formation of the Buzzards Bay
moraine during a glacial readvance was controlled by the
cuesta slope. The geophysical investigation by O’Hara and
Oldale (1987), however, does not appear to substantiate the the-
ory of a fluvial origin for these valleys. Their study shows that
the thalwegs of the valleys deepen toward the center of Nan-
tucket Sound away from both Cape Cod and Martha’s Vineyard
and Nantucket Island, but these lows are not connected and do
not define a trunk river that drained the lowland. The pristine
V-shape of the channels also is difficult to explain in a region
that was so extensively glaciated during the Pleistocene. Flu-
vial channels cut into the erodible coastal plain sediments prior
to the Pleistocene refrigeration should have a more rounded
U-shape typical of a glaciated terrain. This absence of glacial
7
modification and lack of a trunk system led Oldale (personal
communication, 1993) to propose that the valleys in Nantucket
Sound are not of fluvial origin, but are tunnel valleys cut by
subglacial meltwater processes. A similar origin has been pro-
posed by Boyd et al. (1988) for the subsurface channel net-
works on the outer Scotian Shelf. If the channels in Nantucket
Sound, and possibly the other sounds, were eroded by sub-
glacial processes, then the hydraulic gradient of the subglacial
water must have been great enough to permit their extension up
the back slope of the cuesta.
Resting on the subglacial eroded surface of the coastal
plain sediments are acoustic units characterized by flat-lying
gently dipping reflectors that O’Hara and Oldale (1987) inter-
preted as outwash and ice-contact stratified drift; other units of
acoustically well-layered sequence they interpreted as glaciola-
custrine in origin. These sediments, which locally may be as
thick as 160 m in the valleys cut in the coastal plain sediments,
are exposed in many topographic lows in Nantucket Sound.
Present-day marine erosion is producing or maintaining the
exposures of the glacial deposits. The drift sequence is capped
by a major unconformity that O’Hara and Oldale (1987)
believed was fluvially cut in postglacial time during a low sea-
level stand and locally by a planar surface inferred by them to
have been eroded during the subsequent rise in sea level. The
valleys in the fluvially carved surface appear to be southerly
prolongations of the spring sapping ones in the upper Cape
(Uchupi and Oldale, 1994). Above these local fluvial unconfor-
mities are sediment patches that were inferred by O’Hara and
Oldale to be of fluvial, freshwater lake(?), estuarine, and
marine origin.
Nantucket Shoals. Vibracores recovered from the western
edge of Nantucket Shoals near Nantucket Island indicate that the
upper 2 m of the shoals in this region consist of a mixture of
coarse-to-fine quartz sand containing some sparse glauconite
clasts and shell fragments. At some of the core sites, the sands
also contain appreciable amounts of silt and clay. Except at core
SPC6 where the finer sediment occurs at the surface, the finer
sands are found near the base of the sediment section sampled.
The sands in vibracore SPC2 and SPC3 rest on a gravelly silty
sand containing shell and barnacle fragments that we interpreted
as glacial outwash with admixed recent sediments. On vibracore
SSC3 the sands are underlain by a pebbly, black silty clay with
a mild smell of H2S, probably a marsh deposit (Fig. 3).
A boring drilled southeast of Nantucket at 40°58.4′N,
69°23.0′N at a depth of 18.5 m by J. M. Zeigler and associates
at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution during the Texas
Tower studies (Fig. 4) (Groot and Groot, 1964; Livingstone,
1964; Emery and Uchupi, 1972, p. 88, 93) on one of the shoals
consisted of 27.7 m of fine sand atop a silt of unknown thick-
ness (20 m was penetrated by the borehole) containing
reworked Eocene spores and pollen, a few foraminifera, marine
diatoms, sponge spicules, dinoflagellates, and several shells of
Crepidula fornicata.
One of the shells 1.5 m below the top of the silt (47.8 m
8 E. Uchupi and Others
Figure 3. Lithology of vibracores recovered near the east coast of
Nantucket Island along the western edge of Nantucket Shoals. See
Figure 1 for site of vibracores.
below sea level) yielded a radiocarbon date of 11,465 ± 400
B.P. (Groot and Groot, 1964). A boring a few meters from the
above position drilled to a depth of 40 m below the sea floor
yielded lenses of gravel-to-coarse sand and medium-to-fine
silty sand. The sands in both of these borings, as with the sands
at the vibracore sites, show evidence of reworking. A seismic
reflection profile trending northeastward from the eastern edge
of Nantucket Shoals into the Gulf of Maine displays two units.
The lower unit has an irregular surface and displays discontin-
uous internal reflectors; we believe that this layer is of glacial
origin, probably an ice contact facies. Draped over the lower
unit and smoothing its surface irregularities are sediments
which we inferred to be a postglacial marine sequence (Fan A:
Fig. 5). Detritus making up this upper unit was derived from
Nantucket Shoals to the west, as evidenced by its thickening in
that direction.
From the above data we infer that Nantucket Shoals have
undergone and are still undergoing considerable reworking by
Figure 4. Lithology of wells drilled on Nantucket Shoals by J. M. Zei-
gler and associates during the Texas Towers investigation. This log
was compiled by Emery and Uchupi (1972) from unpublished data
archived at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution. See Figure 1
for location of borehole.
tidal currents. The ridge-trough morphology of the region is
probably the result of the tidal current modification of an out-
wash plain deposited by the South Channel lobe to the east.
Thus, the shoals may be marine equivalents to yardangs
(streamlined erosional features aligned in the direction of the
wind) on land. The larger shoals have probably remained sta-
tionary since their formation; only their surfaces are in constant
change in response to the strong tidal currents. Tidal currents
in this region are strong (up to 1 m s–1), although tidal vertical
amplitudes are small. The tide here is an interaction of the Mid-
Atlantic Bight tide and the Gulf of Maine tide. Differences in
amplitude and phase of the two tides result in small ranges but
strong currents, analogous to the tidal interaction in Nantucket
Sound (Redfield, 1980, p. 82). The strong tides permit rework-
ing and erosion of the sediments.
Stratigraphic data from Texas Tower borings and vibracore
 Late Quaternary construction of Cape Cod, Massachusetts 9

Figure 5. Single-channel seismic reflection profile of Fan A east of Nantucket Shoals. B = basement;
G = glacial sediments; H = Holocene postglacial marine sediments; M = acoustic multiple. Record
is from the archives at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution and was recorded by E. Uchupi
and R. D. Ballard during R/V Gosnold cruise 204 in 1973. Sound source: 40 in3 air gun with bubble
suppressor. Profile 15 in Figure 1.

SSC3 suggest that some of the smaller features may have
migrated some distance from their original positions, coming
to rest over sediments indicative of less dynamic environments.
The fines winnowed from Nantucket Shoals during the rework-
ing of the sediments by tidal currents were transported not only
east to Fan A, but southwestward to the Mud Patch, a topo-
graphic low on the outer shelf south of Nantucket Island
(Fig. 1) (Bothner et al., 1981; Twichell et al., 1981). This
amphitheater-shaped low that Uchupi (1967, 1970) believed
was formed by the seaward gravitational sliding of the shelf
strata is covered by an extensive blanket of muddy sediments
(Schlee, 1973). Using coring, echo sounding, seismic reflec-
tion, side-scan sonar data, and 14C-age dates, Bothner et al.
(1981) and Twichell et al. (1981) determined that the fine-
grained sediments in the Mud Patch rest on a relict undulating
sandy surface formed during the Holocene transgression. They
are as much as 13 m thick, were derived from both Nantucket
Shoals and Georges Bank, and began to accumulate 10,950 to
7,850 B.P., when sea level was 45 to 15 m below present.
According to Bothner et al. (1981) 210Pb inventories and trace-
metal profiles indicate that the Mud Patch continues to be a
sink of modern fine-grained sediments. The present rates of
deposition of the fine-grained sediment being removed from
Georges Bank and Nantucket Shoals range from 25 cm ka–1 in
the center of the Patch, where the finest sediment occurs, and
about 50 cm ka–1 in the eastern edge of the patch, where the
sediments are sandier.
Cape Cod. Basement beneath the upper Cape at a depth of
100 m to less than 50 m below sea level, forms an east-
west–trending swell divided by a south-trending valley extend-
ing from Cape Cod Bay to Nantucket Sound (Fig. 18) (Oldale,
1969). In the lower Cape, basement is at a depth of 125 to 150
m, disrupted by an east-trending Mesozoic rift at 42°N (Oldale,
1969; Ballard and Uchupi, 1975). Although glauconite of prob-
able Miocene age has been noted by C. E. Reimers (in Oldale,
1976) in the drift of the northern and eastern upper Cape, no
coastal plain sediments have been encountered by wells in the
subsurface of the region (Fig. 6). Lack of velocity contrast
between the glacial and nonglacial sediments also made it
impossible to detect them, if present, during the geophysical
survey of the Cape by Oldale (1969). The glacial sediments
apparently rest directly on basement with the sequence imme-
diately above basement consisting of poorly sorted till capped
by fine sand, silt, and clay (Fig. 6). The finer grained sediments
may represent a lacustrine facies that accumulated in a
proglacial lake that extended from the northern upper Cape to
the south across Nantucket Sound (Oldale, 1992, p. 75). Some
segments of the region may have risen above the general level
of the lake, as suggested by the absence of such strata on well
MM drilled immediately to the north of the ice contact sedi-
ments near 70°30′N (Fig. 7).
Resting on the lacustrine strata are outwash deposits of the
Mashpee, Barnstable, and Harwich plains, a complex of sub-
deltas graded to the lake described above. These delta com-
plexes were created by a system of braided streams debouching
southward from the ice front to the north. At the distal ends of
the outwash, plains were probably sandy delta fronts whose
dips may have been comparable to the 10° to 25° gradients
reported from sandy deltas elsewhere (Elliot, 1978). West of the
Mashpee plain is the Buzzards Bay moraine, and north of the
Mashpee and Barnstable outwash plains lies the Sandwich
moraine (Fig. 2). These ridges were formed by the tectoniza-
10 E. Uchupi and Others

Figure 6. Geologic cross sections of the upper Cape. Compiled from LeBlanc et al. (1986, Sheet 1),
Oldale and O’Hara (1990, Figs. 1, 8, 9), and O’Hara and Oldale (1987, Figs. 2 through 6). See Fig-
ure 2 for locations of sections.

tion of the Mashpee and Barnstable outwash deposits by over-
riding ice during periodic readvances of the retreating Buzzards
Bay and Cape Cod glacial lobes (Oldale and O’Hara, 1984).
The Harwich plain sediments with its ice contact head to the
north (from the Cape Cod Bay lobe) and to the east (from the
downwasting stagnate front of the South Channel glacial lobe)
were not involved in this deformation, evidence that they are
younger than the Sandwich moraine and the Barnstable and
Mashpee plains. Coeval to the Harwich plain sediments are the
ice-contact Nauset Heights deposits near the elbow of Cape
Cod (Fig. 2) (Oldale, 1976). They are believed to have been
deposited by the South Channel lobe in an interlobe between
the Cape Cod Bay and South Channel lobes.
North of the Sandwich moraine and the Harwich outwash
plain is a lacustrine drift sequence deposited in a proglacial
lake, Cape Cod Bay Glacial Lake, that existed at that time in
the present geographic location of the bay. Additional evidence
for the existence of this lake comes from outwash deltas of the
lower Cape and the lacustrine sediments along the west side of
Cape Cod Bay (Oldale, 1976, 1982). This lake, which was
dammed to the south by the Sandwich moraine and outwash
plains of the upper Cape, by the Cape Cod Bay glacial lobe to
the north, and by the South Channel lobe to the east, increased
in size as the Cape Cod Bay lobe retreated northward. A pave-
ment of ventifacts on the Wellfleet outwash plain in a sea cliff
near Truro suggests that Cape Cod Bay Glacial Lake may have
experienced at least one episode of lake level lowering, then ris-
ing before the final lowering lake stages (Oldale, 1976).
Groundwater seepages from this lake carved the valleys in the
permeable glacial drift of the upper Cape, damming the lake to
the south. According to Oldale (1976; 1992, p. 73) the lake had
its highest stands (25 m and 18 m above present sea level) early
in its history and progressively lower stands as it grew eastward
and northward where it found lower outflow routes. The lake’s
earliest outflow apparently was via Monument valley, the loca-
tion of present Cape Cod Canal, with later ones taking place via
 Late Quaternary construction of Cape Cod, Massachusetts
Figure 7. Lithology of wells drilled on Mashpee Pitted (MM) and
Eastham (6) plains. Compiled from LeBlanc et al. (1986, Sheet 1). See
Figure 2 for locations of wells.
Bass River in the central upper Cape and Town Cove near the
elbow of Cape Cod (Fig. 2).
The shallow bays in the elbow of Cape Cod marked the
position of a sublobe of the South Channel glacial lobe. When
this sublobe retreated, its overlying sediments collapsed to form
a topographic low, which was later filled to nearly sea level to
form the present shallow bays. The lower Cape is dominated by
westerly dipping outwash deposits indicating an easterly source
in the South Channel lobe, and their texture indicates that this
source was located some distance east of the present coast
(except for the Eastham plain, which consists on the east of ice-
contact deposits). The oldest of these plains, the Wellfleet plain,
is higher than the Highland and Truro plains to the north and
Eastham to the south. The lower sequences in this plain (bore-
holes 2 through 5, Fig. 8) are fine deposits displaying foreset
bedding suggestive of outwash delta sediments deposited in
Cape Cod Bay Glacial Lake (Oldale, 1976). The upper sedi-
ments of the Wellfleet plain display a fabric characteristic of
11
Figure 8. Lithology of wells drilled on Wellfleet plain. Compiled from
LeBlanc et al. (1986, Sheet 1). See Figure 2 for locations of wells and
Figure 7 for lithology legend.
fluvial deposition. Diapirs of silt and clay that appear to be sim-
ilar to the mudlumps on the Mississippi Delta (Morgan et al.,
1968) intrude the Wellfleet plain deltaic sediments along the
Atlantic sea cliff (Oldale and Barlow, 1986). Exposures of the
Wellfleet and Highland sediments along the Atlantic coast sea
cliffs have yielded cobbles of shelly marl of Eocene age
(Crosby, 1879). Other reworked material from this and other
plains in the Cape are arkosic sandstone fragments (abundant
in the Nauset Heights deposits) resembling the Triassic rocks
in the Connecticut Valley and the Bay of Fundy, Eocene spores
and pollen, silicified wood fragments of probable Tertiary age,
Tertiary(?) fish teeth, Tertiary and Pleistocene carbonized
wood, and Pleistocene shells (Oldale, 1976).
The fine-grained laminated clay and silt of the Highland
plain, a small triangular-shaped area between the Wellfleet and
Truro plains (Fig. 2), may represent lacustrine sediments
deposited in a lake dammed by the Cape Cod Bay lobe to the
north, the Wellfleet plain to the south, and the South Channel
lobe to the east (Oldale, 1976). Seeps from this lake are respon-
12 E. Uchupi and Others

sible for the valleys eroded on the plains on the lower Cape. As
these valleys also are cut into the Truro plain, the lake must
have extended beyond this depositional unit. Uchupi and
Oldale (1994) have proposed that the Pamet River (Fig. 2),
which extends across the width of the lower Cape, may have
breached the dam of the lake, allowing it to drain westward into
Cape Cod Bay. They also inferred that this drainage was cata-
strophic, widening and deepening the Pamet River valley to
below present sea level.
The Truro plain defines the northern limit of outwash depo-
sition in Cape Cod and is lower and younger than Wellfleet and
Highland plains; it rests unconformably on the Highland plain
sediments along the Atlantic sea cliffs (Oldale, 1976, 1979). The
Truro sediments display large-scale foreset bedding in the cliffs
along the Cape Cod Bay shore, evidence of a deltaic facies
deposited in Cape Cod Bay Glacial Lake. The lower sediment
sequence forming the Truro plain (boreholes 1 and D: Fig. 9)
tend to be finer grained than the upper units. Those at bore-
hole D contain traces of glauconite, shell fragments, carbonized
wood, and Eocene spores and pollen. Zeigler et al. (1960, 1965)
believed that the spores and pollen and carbonized wood in
borehole D were in place and proposed that the fine-grained sed-
iments in well D and the wells in the Provincetown Hook (bore-
holes A and C: Fig. 10) were Eocene in age. The presence of
tests of Elphidium at a depth about 71 m, 14C dates of more than
42,000 yr for the carbonized wood, and sediment occurrence at
the same depth as the well-stratified acoustic sequence in Cape
Cod Bay that Hoskins and Knott (1961) inferred to be of Ter-
tiary age confirmed the age of the sediments. In contrast, we
believe that the spores and pollen were not deposited in place
and that the fine-grained sediments deposited in Cape Cod Bay
are glaciomarine in origin (Oldale, 1988). The basis for this con-
clusion includes the following evidence: the fine-grained sedi-
ments contain traces of glauconite, which is more characteristic
of Miocene than Eocene sediments—thus they are younger than
Eocene; the genus Elphidium is more typical of Plio-Pleis- Figure 9. Lithology of wells drilled on Truro plain. Description of
tocene–Holocene than Eocene sediments; and, finally, extrapo- well D is based on the microscopic analyses of sand fraction
lation from coastal exposures indicates that the well-stratified (>0.7 mm) of samples from wells drilled by J. M. Zeigler and associ-
sediments on Cape Cod are Wisconsinan lacustrine and not ates, supplemented by unpublished notes by them and archived at the
preglacial coastal plain sediments. Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution; well 1 is from LeBlanc et al.
(1986, Sheet 1). See Figure 2 for locations of wells and Figure 7 for
The Eastham plain deposits, mainly of fluvial origin, are lithology legend.
the youngest drift in Cape Cod. Prior to its creation and during
the deposition of the other units, the Eastham plain, near the
Cape’s elbow, was the site of a westward-trending glacial
sublobe of the South Channel lobe. Like the other plains of the (1965) as fluvio-glacial in origin. If the clay does represent
lower Cape, it, too, was deposited by the South Channel lobe, such a depositional environment, it is probably an outlier rather
but graded to a lower Cape Cod Bay Glacial Lake level than the than a westward prolongation of the Truro plain as inferred by
Truro plain, the next oldest drift. Zeigler et al. (1965, their Fig. 2). Possibly the clay is not fluvio-
The surficial sediments in the Provincetown Hook west of glacial but rather lagoonal in origin, deposited in the Province-
the High Land cliff are mostly medium–to–very coarse quart- town Hook complex during the Holocene. The sediments
zose sands with some rounded pebbles, carbonized wood, between the Provincetown Hook facies and the lake deposits in
traces of glauconite, finer aeolian sands, and marsh deposits borehole C at Stark’s display less wear than the Provincetown
(boreholes A-C, AA, and BB: Fig. 10). The reddish clay in Hook marine sediments above, leading Zeigler et al. (1965) to
borehole BB near Pilgrim Lake was interpreted by Zeigler et al. propose that they are of fluvial-glacial rather than marine ori-
 Late Quaternary construction of Cape Cod, Massachusetts 13

Figure 10. Lithology of wells drilled on the Provincetown Hook. Description of wells A, C, AA, and
BB drilled by J. M. Zeigler and associates is based on the microscopic analyses of the sand fraction
(>0.7 mm) of samples supplemented by unpublished notes by Zeigler and associates. Lithology of
well B is based on notes transcribed by H. Hoskins of the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution
(WHOI) (included with the unpublished notes of J. M. Zeigler archived at WHOI) from an unpub-
lished manuscript by M. F. Knout in the U.S. Geological Survey’s Boston office. See Figure 2 for
locations of wells and Figure 7 for lithology legend.

gin. Zeigler et al. (1965) also proposed that this sequence at a
depth of 40 m probably is in place and marks the most westerly
occurrence of the Truro drift. It probably defines the edge of an
erosional terrace cut in front of the easterly retreating High
Head sea cliffs. Possibly the sediments also may represent sed-
iment slumped as the cliff retreated eastward during the
Holocene. On both the Stark’s (C) and the Provincetown Power
Plant (B) boreholes is a massive black mineral, which may be
wad. This mineral generally is found in marshy areas and is
formed as a result of the decomposition of manganese minerals.
In borehole B the mineral is found in sediments inferred to be
lacustrine in origin, whereas at site C the wad is in association
with reworked glacial sediments. At site B the lacustrine and
the Provincetown facies are separated by an unfossiliferous
sequence of hard clay and coarse sand. Part or all of this inter-
val may be equivalent to the amorphous seismic layer described
by Oldale (1988) from Cape Cod Bay (Fig. 22). At Race Point
Spit (borehole A) the Provincetown Hook facies rests on a peb-
bly, poorly sorted medium sand with water-worn clasts that also
may be equivalent to the amorphous layer offshore. These sed-
iments, like the fine sediments at Stark’s (borehole C), were
previously assigned by Zeigler et al. (1965) as Eocene in age;
we suggest that they are late Pleistocene deposits.
Eastern offshore area. The narrow shelf east of the lower
Cape is made up of a wave-built terrace south, and a wave-cut
terrace north, of Chatham (Fig. 2). Whereas the wave-built ter-
race surface sediments consist of coarse sand, the wave-cut ter-
race is mantled by a lag deposit of reddish coarse sand and
gravel (Schlee and Pratt, 1970; Schlee, 1973; Aubrey et al.,
1982). Clasts recovered from the terrace’s seaward scarp during
the current investigation were found to be coated with man-
ganese oxide, suggesting that little or no sediment is being
14 E. Uchupi and Others

deposited on the scarp at present. High-resolution seismic
reflection profiles taken in the wave-built terrace with an
EG&G Uniboom display a prominent reflector about 10 to
30 m below the sea floor, an unconformity shoaling to the north
and south (Fig. 11) (Aubrey et al., 1982). Cutting this surface is
a channel system draining to the east. Below the unconformity
is an acoustically massive unit and above it a layer displaying a
complex textural fabric. The upper sediment unit in places
lacks internal reflectors, in others it has an extensive network
of discontinuous reflectors, and in still others it displays foreset
bedding dipping to the south and west with a source to the
northeast. The surface of the upper unit is channelized, result-
ing in an undulating topography. These channels, which
become more numerous and narrower toward shore and termi-
nate at a depth of about 18 m, may have been produced by rip
currents (Dillon et al., 1979). Aubrey et al. (1982) identified the
subsurface horizon as the top of the depression occupied by a
protrusion of the South Channel lobe at the time that the out-
wash sediments to the north and west of the Nauset Marsh were
deposited. The channels on the surface supposedly were eroded
subaerially, possibly from discharge from Cape Cod Bay
Glacial Lake, before the deposition of Holocene marine sedi-
ments filled the low. Aubrey et al. (1982) also postulated that
the sediments above the unconformity depression represent
either outwash sediments deposited by the South Channel lobe
or Holocene marine sediments derived from the eroding cliffs

Figure 11. Single-channel seismic reflection profile of the northern edge of the sediment-filled low
seaward of Cape Cod’s elbow. The undulating prominent reflector (UR) pinching out on the plat-
form’s south scarp was assumed by Aubrey et al. (1982) to be the base of the low left behind by a
sublobe of the South Channel lobe when it retreated eastward. They determined that this low had a
relief of about 0.03 s (25 m, assuming a sediment velocity of 1,600 m/s). Seismic reflection profiles
taken with a more powerful seismic source (see Fig. 12) demonstrate that this reflector is the top of
a thick section filling a much deeper low whose foundation is basement. This low has a relief exceed-
ing 0.1 s (more than 80 m, assuming a sediment velocity of 1,600 m/s). The thick unit below the
undulating reflector is believed to have been deposited by the retreating sublobe and the unit above
the reflector by marine processes during the Holocene. Profile from the archives at the U.S. Geolog-
ical Survey, Branch of Atlantic Marine Geology, Woods Hole, was recorded by D. Twichell and D.
Aubrey during R/V Neecho cruise NE-06 in 1979 using an EG&G Uniboom. Profile 11 in Figure 1.
M = acoustic multiple.
 Late Quaternary construction of Cape Cod, Massachusetts 15

to the north. If these cliffs eroded in the past at the present rate
of 0.8 m a–1 (Zeigler et al., 1964a), they would have been capa-
ble of providing sufficient detritus to fill the low. We suggest,
however, that the lower massive unit is of glacial origin and was
deposited by the lobe of the South Channel lobe, and that the
upper unit is a Holocene marine sequence made of sediments
derived from the north.
Seismic reflection profiles taken using a 40-in3 air gun as a
sound source show that the massive lower unit is quite thick,
filling a depression more than 100 m deep (Fig. 12). Its base is
formed by basement, its northern rim by the edge of the ero-
sional terrace to the north, and its southern one by a scarp defin- Figure 12. Line interpretation of a single-channel seismic reflection
profile of the sediment-filled low seaward of Nauset Marsh. The pro-
ing the northern termination of the coastal plain sediments.
file trends obliquely across the filled low, causing the apparent
Prior to the formation of the erosional terrace and the deposi- northerly dip of the sea floor. The low is bordered by coastal plain sed-
tion of the upper unit, the northern side of the depression may iments to the south and outwash sediments to the north. Prior to the
have risen 60 m above the general level of the depression. construction by erosion of the terrace to the north, this side of the low
Above the massive sediments filling most of the depression are may have had a relief of about 90 m. Erosional remnants within the
low may consist of either coastal plain or glacial drift sediments.
the marsh deposits behind the Nauset Beach on the west, the
Much of the low’s fill was deposited by an easterly retreating sublobe
complex bedded unit on the shelf in the center, and Fan B on of the South Channel lobe. The rest of the fill, about 20 to 30 m thick,
the outer shelf on the east, a depocenter pinching out on the was derived from the north when a terrace was eroded during the lat-
glaciomarine sediments of the Wilkinson Basin complex in the est Wisconsin–Holocene transgression from lower Cape outwash sed-
western Gulf of Maine (Fig. 13; see also 25E). The massive iments. Line interpretation is of a profile from the archives at the
Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution recorded by R. N. Oldale, E.
lower unit represents sediments deposited by the retreating
Uchupi, and K. E. Prada during R/V Gosnold cruise 146 in 1969.
sublobe and sediments that collapsed into the low from the Sound source: 40 in3 air gun. Profile 12 in Figure 1.
retreating ice, and represents a southeastern extension of the
Eastham plain deposits. The discontinuous patches immedi-
ately above basement may be part of this fill or may represent
coastal plain erosional remnants. The rest of the low’s fill, the
complex bedded unit, and Fan B (Fig. 13) consist of sediment
eroded from the glacial terrains to the west and from the wave-
cut terrace north of the depression. Although a considerable
volume of glacial and marine sediment has accumulated in it,
the depression still has a topographic expression as evidenced
by the broad reentrant on the slope’s contours (Fig. 1). Once the
low was nearly filled, nearshore processes formed the Nauset
and Monomoy bars, and the filled low was cut in two. The sed-
iment regime seaward of the barrier island has remained a high-
energy environment as documented by the rip current channels
and large waves, whereas the segment of the low landward of
the barrier became a low-energy domain, allowing the develop-
ment of the present marshes.
The wave-cut terrace fronting the sea cliffs of the lower
Cape is 2.8 to 7.0 km wide and 33 km long with its outer edge at
a depth of 38 to 40 m (Fig. 2). Parts of the inner boundary of the
terrace are buried by onlapping sediments and along its southern
rim is at least one sediment-filled channel that probably drained
southward to the low south of the terrace. The terrace’s surface Figure 13. Single-channel seismic reflection profile of the seaward
is rough with subtle changes in its seaward gradient probably edge (Fan B) of the sediment-filled low seaward of Cape Cod’s elbow.
documenting temporary sea-level stands or changes in rates of B = basement; G = glacial sediments; H = Holocene marine sedi-
sea-level rise during its erosion. The slope along its seaward ments. Note seaward-dipping reflectors at the northwest end of the
seismic section. Profile from the archives at the Woods Hole Oceano-
edge has a relief of 81 to 99 m and a gradient of about 5° graphic Institution was recorded by E. Uchupi and R. D. Ballard dur-
(assuming a sediment velocity of 1,600 m s–1; Fig. 14). This ing R/V Gosnold cruise 204 in 1973. Sound source: 40 in3 air gun with
scarp defines the westerly boundary of the South Channel lobe bubble suppressor. Profile 13 in Figure 1.
at the time that the outwash plains of the lower Cape were
16 E. Uchupi and Others

Figure 14. Single-channel seismic reflection profile of the eastern edge of the erosional platform north
of sediment-filled trough in Figure 11. B = basement; D = debris flows derived from the slope to the
west; E = escarpment defining the western edge of the sediment wedge deposited by the South Chan-
nel lobe that created the lower Cape; G = glacial sediments; H = Holocene deposits; M = multiple
reflection, P = platform. The platform was formed by wave erosion of the proximal end of the outwash
sediments during the latest Wisconsin–Holocene transgression. Profile is from the archives at the
Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution and was recorded by E. Uchupi and R. D. Ballard during R/V
Gosnold cruise 204 in 1973. Sound source: 40 in3 air gun with bubble suppressor. Profile 14 in Figure 1.

deposited. Sediments forming the core of the terrace are acousti-
cally homogeneous and are about 0.12 s (96 m, assuming a
velocity of 1,600 m s–1) thick. Sediments beyond the outer scarp
consist of an irregular surface lower unit with a maximum thick-
ness of 60 m resting on basement and terminating on a bulge.
This unit may be a debris flow that originated in the scarp to the
west when the South Channel lobe retreated away from the
scarp, leading to its partial collapse. Above the debris flow
sequence is 30-m-thick Fan C consisting of detritus from the
erosional terrace. At its distal end the fan onlaps the Wisconsi-
nan glacial marine sediments of the western Gulf of Maine.
Cape Cod Bay. Basement in Cape Code Bay, exposed along
its northwest part, slopes gently toward the northeast (Oldale et
al., 1973; Oldale and O’Hara, 1990). Two drainage systems are
carved on this surface, one northwest draining the area via a
water gap north of Provincetown, and a southern one draining
via a channel in the outer lower Cape along an east-west–trend-
ing Late Triassic–Early Jurassic rift (Oldale and Tuttle, 1964;
Ballard and Uchupi, 1975). Above the basement are isolated
erosional remnants (Fig. 18) that have been inferred as coastal
plain sediments comparable to those described from Marshfield
by Kaye (1983). Resting on the older units are lacustrine sedi-
ments (originally interpreted as Cenozoic sediments by Hoskins
and Knott, 1961) deposited in Cape Cod Bay Glacial Lake dur-
ing the retreat of the Cape Cod glacial lobe. The lacustrine facies
along the margins of the bay consist of outwash deltas. In the
center of the bay are well-stratified ice-contact sediments, which
Oldale (1988) believed were deposited in a series of fans by
meltwater that entered Cape Cod Bay Glacial Lake along the
base of the retreating ice. On the northern end of Cape Cod Bay
the lacustrine sediments are separated from a well-stratified
acoustic unit by a prominent reflector documenting a rapid and
drastic change in sedimentation.
Seismic profiles extending from two coring sites in Stellwa-
gen Basin (Tucholke and Hollister, 1973) to Cape Cod Bay indi-
cate that the sediment above the horizon is glaciomarine. Oldale
(1988) and Oldale et al. (1993) have proposed that the lower
glaciomarine sediments were deposited when the ice retreated
north of Cape Cod Bay, as far as northeastern Massachusetts
prior to 14,000 B.P., and the upper sediments 14,000 to 13,000
B.P. when the ice retreated north of Boston and relative sea level
near Boston was +33 m higher than now. Above the glacioma-
rine and lacustrine sediments in northern Cape Cod Bay is a
wedge-shaped acoustic amorphous layer thickening to the south,
which vibracore sampling indicates consists of sand (Fig. 22).
Oldale (1988) suggested two origins for the layer. In one the
amorphous unit was deposited in a marine environment, an ori-
gin supported by the foreset bed structure displayed by the unit
west of Provincetown. This delta supposedly was created when
the Cape Cod Bay region rebounded isostatically due to ice
unloading, relative sea level dropped to –43 m below its present
level, and Cape Cod Bay was eroded by fluvial processes. Sedi-
ments forming the delta were derived from this fluvial erosion of
Cape Cod Bay. In the second origin the unit was emplaced by a
submarine landslide or debris flow, an origin suggested by the
amorphous acoustic signature of the layer. If the layer is a debris
flow, it may have originated in the High Head sea cliff and may
be more extensive than indicated by Oldale (1988). If the debris
 Late Quaternary construction of Cape Cod, Massachusetts
flow originated on the cliff near the terrace at Stark’s (borehole
C: Fig. 10), the fine-to-coarse sand and compact clay on
Provincetown at depths of 37 to 55 m below sea level above the
lacustrine sediments (borehole B), and the pebbly, silty poorly
sorted sand on Race Point at a depth of 60 m below sea level
(borehole A) may be onshore equivalents of this acoustic unit.
Birch (in Oldale and O’Hara, 1990) suggested a third possibility,
proposing that the amorphous layer is an ancestral Provincetown
Hook formed during the late Wisconsinan submergence of the
outer lower Cape. The Wisconsinan sediments of Cape Cod Bay
and the valley fill above the late Wisconsinan regression are
truncated by a wave-eroded surface formed during the Holocene
transgression that began about 12,000 B.P. Above this hiatus are
Holocene marine sediments deposited during and subsequent to
this transgression.
Billingsgate Shoal. Billingsgate Shoal is a triangular-
shaped topographic high 14 km long by 6 km wide, that is
asymmetric (steeper toward the southeast) and extends south-
westward from Wellfleet Harbor. According to Davis (1896),
the development of the present “west concave” shoreline of
lower Cape Cod began in concert with the growth of the
Provincetown Hook. Prior to that time the western (Truro) coast
of the lower Cape had been shaped into a long, straight shore-
line extending from the relic wave-cut cliffs of High Head
southward to the tombolo now forming the western shore of
Wellfleet Harbor. Davis was aware of suggestions that outlying
islands may once have stood on the site of Billingsgate Shoal,
and he wondered whether the present southwest-trending
nearshore shoals at the base of Billingsgate Shoal represent a
new feature produced by the post-Provincetown Hook excava-
tion of the concave shoreline, or rather were somehow related
to earlier land forms on Billingsgate Shoal.
Giese (1963) developed the second alternative theory and
in so doing suggested that the present tombolo-formed shore of
Wellfleet Harbor is a recent feature, and that the pre–Province-
town Hook shoreline, far from being straight, as Davis had pos-
tulated, curved out toward the southwest following the general
outline of the present Billingsgate Shoal. A comparison
between U.S. Coast and Geodetic Survey surveys of
1849–1850 and 1934 indicated that the shoal is slowly migrat-
ing southeastward, and that more than 10 million m3 of sedi-
ment were removed from the shoal during the 85-yr period.
From the trend of the wave-cut cliffs of High Head and the
depositional history of the Provincetown Hook, and assuming
the geodynamic processes proposed by Davis (1896), Giese
suggested the following origin for Billingsgate Shoal. Prior to
the formation of Provincetown Hook about 6,000 B.P., the
western shore of the lower Cape was eroded by waves from the
northwest, and the resultant strong southerly littoral drift
deposited this debris to form a feature comparable to Sandy
Neck along the bay’s south shore. As the Provincetown Hook
was formed, the region was more protected from northerly
waves, the southerly drift diminished, subaerial Billingsgate
Shoal began to both erode and submerge in response to a rising
17
sea level, and eventually the spit diminished to its present form.
Evidence supporting this model for the development of the
shoal is the cordon of beaches connecting glacial sediment out-
liers landward of the shoal in Wellfleet Harbor; these beaches
were not in existence in the 18th century. Their presence sup-
ports the contention that the littoral drift is a recent phenome-
non initiated after Billingsgate Shoal to the west began to waste
away. Comparison of surveys also indicates that the irregular
southeast shore of the currently eroding shoal has become
smoother with time, a feature to be expected as the shoal
erodes. Giese (1963) further speculated that Billingsgate Shoal
may have originated as a ridge of glacial deposits.
Oldale and O’Hara (1984) suggested that Billingsgate
Shoal originated as a moraine formed by a minor advance of
the Cape Cod Bay lobe, which deformed the Cape Cod Bay
Glacial Lake sediments in front of it. Larson (1982) proposed
that this readvance is equivalent to the one that formed the
Monks Hill moraine west of Cape Cod Bay by the Buzzards
Bay lobe (Fig. 22). Seismic reflection profiles recorded by
Oldale and O’Hara (1990) (Figs. 15, 16B) demonstrate a com-
plex pattern of internal reflectors dipping steeply toward the
northwest in Billingsgate Shoal. This fabric appears to be of
tectonic rather than of depositional origin and is probably due
to the deformation of the glaciolacustrine deposits by ice pres-
sure from the northwest (Fig. 16B). As the ice advanced south-
eastward, the sediments in front of it were thrust in that
direction creating the shoal’s imbricate structure with the layers
dipping toward the northwest. This tectonic stacking accounts
for the ridge’s southeast flank being much steeper than its
northwest one. The profiles indicate that the southwesterly tip
of the moraine was planed off during the Holocene transgres-
sion, and the erosional surface was later buried by sediments as
thick as 8 m, some of which have dipping internal reflectors
(Fig. 15). These relict sediments, probably deposited by south-
westerly flowing littoral drift as had been suggested by Giese,
were interpreted by Oldale and O’Hara (1990) as relict bars or
beaches deposited at lower sea levels. The rest of the moraine
does not appear to have been affected significantly during the
Holocene transgression with modifications consisting mainly
of smoothing topographic irregularities by filling the lows
along the crest of the ridge. The ridge probably extended farther
east than it does now. How far it extends beneath the Wellfleet
deposits of the lower Cape and whether it extended to the South
Channel lobe are yet to be resolved. There is no doubt that
before it was buried by Wellfleet plain deposits, the ridge must
have influenced deposition not only from South Channel lobe
east of Glacial Lake Cape Cod, but also from Cape Cod Bay
lobe north of the lake. How long this influence persisted is
another question awaiting answer. Although the ridge may have
affected sedimentation in the region, it does not appear to have
been a significant sediment source during its existence, as
deposits do not appear to increase appreciably in thickness in
the direction of the high.
Stellwagen Basin. Sediments above basement on Stellwa-
18 E. Uchupi and Others
 Late Quaternary construction of Cape Cod, Massachusetts 19

Figure 15. Seismic reflection profiles of Billingsgate Shoal recorded
by Oldale and O’Hara (1990) during their investigation of Cape Cod
Bay. In contrast to the crest of the shoal, which only underwent some
minor modification during the Holocene transgression (profiles 16
through 21), its southwest tip was extensively eroded (profiles 9 and 8)
during the transgression. This erosional surface was later buried by
sediment deposited by southwest-flowing littoral drift. See Figure 16
for locations of profiles. Profiles are from the archives at the U.S. Geo-
logical Survey, Marine Geology Branch, Woods Hole. Sound source:
EG&G Uniboom.
gen Basin and east of Stellwagen Bank consist of coastal plain
erosional remnants, glacial drift, Wisconsinan glaciomarine
mud containing the foraminifera Elphidium clavatum (also
excavatum) and Holocene marine mud (Oldale, 1988, 1989;
Oldale et al., 1973; Schnitker, 1976). 14C age determinations
from two cores raised from Stellwagen Basin yielded ages of
21,950 ± 1,350 and 18,900 ± 600 B.P. from the drift at the base
of the cores at 20 and 22 m, and 13,130 ± 250 B.P. from the
upper glaciomarine sediments at 13.5 to 13.8 m (Tucholke and
Hollister, 1973). The dates of 14,250 ± 250 and 13,800 ± 300 yr
reported by Kaye and Barghoorn (1964) from the glaciomarine
mud in Lynn, Massachusetts, are now considered to be too
young (R. N. Oldale, personal communication).
Stellwagen Bank, a triangular-shaped topographic high
located 10 km north of the tip of Cape Cod, may have had a
geologic history similar to the lower Cape (Oldale, 1993; see
also Ward, 1995, p. 15–19). The surface of the 40-km-long by
16- (southern end) to 14-km- (northern end) wide feature dips
eastward. It, too, formed in an embayment between the Cape
Cod Bay and South Channel glacial lobes, with the former
being located somewhat west of Stellwagen Basin and the latter
in contact with the east flank of Stellwagen Bank. Its easterly
dip and westerly curve suggest that the bank formed from a
westerly source, the Cape Cod Bay lobe. If so, it must have
been emplaced prior to the deposition of the late Wisconsinan
glaciomarine sediments in Stellwagen Basin. Oldale (1993),
however, believed that the bank was deposited from the east by
the South Channel lobe as documented by the coarsening of the
bank’s surface sediment in that direction. He ascribes the
bank’s present outline to postglacial changes that occurred dur-
ing and subsequent to its drowning. The possibility that the
bank may have been formed from both easterly and westerly
sources and deposited in a marine bay between South Channel
and Cape Cod Bay lobes also merits consideration. In contrast
to the lower Cape, Stellwagen Bank was formed by deltas
graded to a marine embayment rather than a freshwater lake.
The bank also differs from the lower Cape in that much of the
outwash deposits may rest mainly on coastal plain erosional
remnants rather than basement (Oldale et al., 1973). Whereas a
large segment of Cape Cod remained above sea level during the
Holocene transgression, Stellwagen Bank was drowned and its

Figure 16. A, Mode of formation of Billingsgate Shoal by a readvancing glacial lobe. Densely stip-
pled pattern on the flanks of the shoal represents lacustrine sediments deposited after formation of
the shoal. Adapted from Oldale and O’Hara (1984, Fig. 12). B, Topographic map of Billingsgate
Shoal showing locations of seismic reflection profiles in Figure 15. Distribution of beach and bar
deposits at the southwestern end of the shoal is from Oldale and O’Hara (1990, Fig. 10). Contours in
beach and bar deposits are isopachs in meters.
20 E. Uchupi and Others
top truncated. Much of the resulting detritus was transported
westward, possibly forming the high parallel to its western
flank reversing its dip; some of the detritus spilled from the
bank into Stellwagen Basin beyond the high.
Western Gulf of Maine. Basement in the Gulf of Maine
consists of Paleozoic and older rocks on which is faulted a
Mesozoic rift system (Ballard and Uchupi, 1975). Above the
basement are a few isolated coastal plain erosional remnants
such as Fippenines Ledge at 69°18′W, 42°48′N with its Eocene
siliceous sediments (Schlee and Cheetham, 1967). Mantling the
floor of the Gulf is a thin veneer of Pleistocene sediments that
document the late Wisconsinan glaciation and subsequent
glacial retreat. In most of the basins in the Gulf of Maine the
glacial sediments are covered by an acoustically transparent
mud deposited during the Holocene (Schlee, 1973; McClennen,
1989). Except for a few scour depressions near topographic
highs and possible pockmarks associated with biogenic gas
seeps, these Holocene muds display a smooth nearly level sur-
face. At the base of the glacial sequence is a poorly sorted drift
(Scotian Shelf Drift) (King and MacLean, 1976; King, 1980)
containing an appreciable amount of gravel, a unit that is partic-
ularly thick in Great South Channel (Knott and Hoskins, 1968;
Uchupi, 1970). The basal till in Great South Channel contains
reworked Paleocene and Eocene bryozoans, Pleistocene
foraminifera, glauconite, shell fragments and fish teeth. 14C dat-
ing of total carbon from the deposit by Bothner and Spiker
(1980) provided an age no older than 20,000 B.P. for the till.
Reworking of the till during the late Wisconsin-Holocene trans-
gression led to the formation of wide expanses of lag gravel in
the Gulf of Maine (Schlee, 1973; Schlee and Pratt, 1970). Above
the drift is the Emerald Silt, a glaciomarine fine-grained, well-
bedded locally gravely silt sand deposited in brackish-to-normal
marine conditions (Belknap et al., 1991). Schnitker (1988)
stated that the marine incursion into the Wilkinson Basin in the
western Gulf of Maine had started by at least 17,600 B.P. and
that glaciomarine conditions ended 14,000 B.P. in the outer Gulf
and 12,000 B.P. near the present coast.
Two models have been proposed for the deposition of the
glaciomarine sediments in the Gulf of Maine, an ice shelf
(Hughes et al., 1985; King and Fader, 1986; Dyke and Prest,
1987; Belknap and Shipp, 1988; Schnitker, 1988) and a
grounded subpolar marine-based glacier (Oldale et al., 1990).
The wide distribution of seismic layers in the glaciomarine silt,
the presence of clasts in the silt, and the absence of a microflora
are believed by Schnitker (1983, 1988) to be compatible with
deposition beneath an ice shelf. Previously Schnitker (1986)
suggested that the ice shelf occupied all the Gulf of Maine
being grounded near the coast with its outer edge resting on
Georges Bank. More recently, Belknap et al. (1991) proposed
that the ice lifted off the basins in the Gulf of Maine in sequen-
tial order from south to north with “till-tongues” (wedges of
acoustical reflections interbedded with the glaciomarine sedi-
ments; Mosher et al., 1989; Piper et al., 1987) along the basin
margins documenting ice-grounding effects and later furrowing
by icebergs. Oldale et al. (1990) rejected the ice-shelf model,
pointing out that there are no modern examples of a temperate
shelf, that temperate conditions that existed at that time in
southern New England would have led to the destruction rather
than the preservation of an ice shelf, and that presence of rela-
tively warm ocean water (5° to 8°C) beneath the ice during late
Wisconsin (Schnitker, 1976) also is incompatible with an ice
shelf. They also pointed out: (1) if the mud was deposited
beneath an ice shelf, then its repetitive rhythm deposition was
created by repetitive and simultaneous melt-out of the ice shelf,
an unlikely event; (2) basal melt-outs on modern ice shelves
occur only near the grounding line shortly after flotation and
that the ice shelf seaward of the grounding line is free of basal
debris; and (3) such melt-outs produce only a diamicton, not a
glaciomarine silt. For these reasons, Oldale et al. (1990) pro-
posed a grounded marine-based glacier model. Glaciomarine
deposition in this model is from sediment-laden meltwater
streams that reach the open sea through tunnels at the base of
the gounded ice front in the manner described by Pfirman
(1985) for the Svalbard glacier. These streams deposit their
coarse load near the grounding line, producing features similar
to “ice tongues.” The finer sediments were transported farther
seaward by near-sea-surface plumes that were active along the
ice front. Deposition from these plumes, which are capable of
transporting muds as far as 50 km offshore (Molnia, 1983), is
responsible for the widespread rhythmic stratification of the
glaciomarine sediments.
GLACIAL CHRONOLOGY AND SEA LEVEL
The sea-level curves described by Fairbanks (1989) and
Bard et al. (1990) show sea level rising at about 18,000 B.P. and
display no evidence of when it bottomed out. Thus, the maxi-
mum southern extent of the Laurentide glaciation must have
occurred earlier. Similarly, radiogenic dating (35,000 to 20,000
B.P.) of a till in Great South Channel suggests that the Lauren-
tide ice reached its maximum extension in New England about
20,000 B.P. (Bothner and Spiker, 1980). More recently Oldale
(1989) proposed that full glaciated conditions in southern New
England probably took place between about 21,000 and 18,000
B.P., with retreat from the glacial maximum beginning 18,000
B.P. As the ice advanced southward it picked up and incorpo-
rated into the drift organic remains with the youngest material
dated, about 21,000 B.P., representing the time of the advance
of the Laurentide ice sheet to its southern terminus at the
mouths of Northeast and Great South channels, the northern
edge of Georges Bank, and the terminal moraines in Martha’s
Vineyard and Nantucket Island. It is because of the incorpora-
tion of old material into the drift that the dates of 20,000 and
26,000 B.P. on shell and wood from the Wellfleet and Highland
plain deposits (Zeigler et al., 1964a; Oldale, 1968) and other
similar dates are an indication only that the drifts in Cape Cod
are not older than late Wisconsin, rather than an indication of
their absolute age.
 Late Quaternary construction of Cape Cod, Massachusetts
An age of 21,000 B.P. for the time when the Laurentide ice
sheet reached its southern terminus is also suggested by the age
of one of the Heinrich layers (rich in ice-rafted debris and poor
in foraminifera) in the North Atlantic. These layers were
deposited as a result of the rapid advance of ice streams in east-
ern Canada and maximum calving along the ice front as it
reached its maximum seaward position (Bond et al., 1992). A
date of 20,000 B.P. for maximum Laurentide glaciation also is
suggested by ages from other sites along the southern margin of
the Laurentide glacier on land. Sediments indicative of a cool
climate from western Long Island and deposited prior to the
late Wisconsin glaciation, for example, yielded ages ranging
from 27,950 ± 450 to 21,750 ± 450 B.P. (Sirkin and Stucken-
rath, 1980). According to Stone and Borns (1986), the 21,750-
yr date is the youngest subtill date from the New England–
Long Island region. A stump cluster in growth position near
Cincinnati that was killed by the overriding Laurentide glacier
yielded an average age of 19,670 ± 68 B.P. (Lowell et al.,
1990). The maximum extent of the Lake Michigan lobe has
been dated as 19,500 ± 200 and 20,000 ± 200 B.P. and the
Fayette maximum as 21,000 B.P. (Broecker and Denton, 1990,
and references therein). In the reconstruction of the paleogeog-
raphy of the Cape Cod region discussed below, we assume that
the Laurentide ice sheet reached its maximum southerly posi-
tion 20,000 B.P., and that retreat began soon after, to account
for the marine conditions that were established in the western
Gulf of Maine no later than 17,600 B.P.
Glacial retreat in southeastern Massachusetts was rela-
tively rapid as marine conditions were established in Wilkinson
Basin in the western Gulf of Maine no later than 17,600 B.P.
(Schnitker, 1988) and Stellwagen Basin northeast of Boston no
later than 14,000 B.P. (Tucholke and Hollister, 1973; Oldale et
al., 1993). By 14,000 B.P. the ice front in New England had
retreated from its maximum southern position to a point some
200 km to the north, a retreat rate of 50 km/1,000 yr. If the ice
retreated at a uniform rate (a questionable assumption), then
Cape Cod was ice free by no later than 15,000 B.P. Such a sce-
nario is supported by studies in coastal Maine by Smith (1982,
1985), which indicate that deglaciation of the Gulf of Maine
took place between 17,000 and 13,000 B.P. This rapid glacial
decay in late Wisconsin was due to an increase in summer insu-
lation in the Northern Hemisphere (Lehman et al., 1991) which,
according to Fairbanks (1989), was underway by about 18,000
B.P. and peaked at a radiocarbon date of 12,000 B.P. Deglacia-
tion appears to have been in two major steps separated by a
period of little or no ice volume loss. Rates of global glacial
meltwater discharge calculated from the Barbados sea-level
curve by Fairbanks (1989) indicated that periods of maximum
melting took place at about 12,000 and 9,500 B.P.; and the
period of minimal glacial meltwater discharge, the Younger
Dryas event, occurred between 11,000 and 10,500 B.P. Associ-
ated with the latest melting event was the invasion of warm,
salty Indian Ocean water into the North Atlantic via the Agul-
has-Benguela Current system about 9,000 B.P. According to
21
Jones (1996), the invasion of this warm, salty water led to sta-
bilization of the present climatic and oceanic regime of the
North Atlantic. Major meltwater discharge into the Gulf of
Mexico was more sporadic, having occurred from 16,500 to
15,500 B.P. and from 15,250 to 14,900 B.P., with minor dis-
charges claimed to occur at 14,400, 14,100, 13,800, 12,800,
12,100, and 11,900 B.P. (Leventer et al., 1982). The pro-
nounced decrease in discharge into the Gulf of Mexico between
11,000 and 10,000 B.P. was the result of a change in discharge
direction from southward via the Mississippi River to eastward
via the Hudson and St. Lawrence Rivers (Broecker et al., 1988;
Joyce et al., 1993). During this rather abrupt retreat disrupted
by periodic readvances (such as the Cary readvance between
15,000 and 14,000 B.P.), when the ice deformed the sediments
in front of it, the glacial morphology of the Cape Cod region
was created. The morphologic development of the glacial Cape
may have been influenced by the Younger Dryas event when
reoccurrence of glacial conditions in the western Gulf of Maine
(Wilkinson Basin) disrupted the nonglacial environment of the
region. This refrigeration was the result of a large and sudden
discharge through the St. Lawrence River with the meltwater
reaching the Gulf of Maine via the Nova Scotian Shelf
(Schnitker et al., 1991). However, no evidence for this renewed
glacial activity has been observed on the Cape.
Another factor that influenced the development of Cape
Cod’s morphology was the latest Wisconsin-Holocene rise in
sea level. Although it is difficult, if not impossible, to construct
a global eustatic sea-level curve for the last deglaciation
because of local neotectonism (see Emery and Aubrey, 1991),
the calibration of the 14C time scale curve from Barbados (Fair-
banks, 1989; Bard et al., 1990) (Fig. 17) is probably a close
approximation of the response of sea level to Wisconsin glacial
decay. At the glacial maxima about 18,000 B.P. , sea level was
about 130 m below its present level. From there sea level rose at
a rate of about 11 m/1,000 yr, reaching a depth of 20 m below
the present level 8,000 B.P. Approximately 6,000 B.P., global
mean sea level was at a depth of 10 m and 5,000 B.P. at about
7 m below its present level. Glacioisostatic adjustment in the
Cape Cod region complicates local relative sea-level history, so
global isostatic curves are of limited use here.
The curve compiled by Milliman and Emery (1968) for the
nonglaciated shelf off the eastern United States tends to follow
the general trend of the curve of Bard et al. (1990), but those
constructed for New England depart noticeably from the Barba-
dos trend. As a result of crustal depression by glacial loading,
relative sea level in northeastern Massachusetts was +33 m
higher than its present level about 14,000 B.P. This high-level
stand, documented by emerged glaciomarine sediments, raised
paleoshorelines and ice-contact deltas (Oldale, 1985b; Oldale et
al., 1993, and additional references therein) ranged from +18 m
in Boston Basin to +130 m in central Maine. The age of the
highstand ranges from 14,250 ± 250 and 13,800 ± 300 B.P. in
Lynn, Massachusetts (Kaye and Barghoorn, 1964), about 14,250
B.P. in the Merrimack River valley, Massachusetts (Oldale et al.,
22 E. Uchupi and Others
Figure 17. Sea-level curve during the last deglaciation from Barbados,
Caribbean, and the Cape Cod region. The Barbados curve is from Bard
et al. (1990, Fig. 1). The curves from Cape Cod are from Redfield and
Rubin (1962, Fig. 2), Barnstable; Kaye and Barghoorn (1964, Fig. 5),
Boston; Oldale and O’Hara (1980, Fig. 2), southeastern Massachusetts
shelf; and Oldale et al. (1983, 1987, 1993, Fig. 5), northeastern Massa-
chusetts and the western Gulf of Maine. Date from TT site in Nan-
tucket Shoals (see Fig. 1 for location of site) is from Groot and Groot
(1964). The curves of Kaye and Barghoorn and Oldale et al. have been
modified to indicate the possible maximum drop in sea level during the
12,000 B.P. regression due to crustal rebound.
1993), and 13,830 ± 100 B.P. in coastal Maine (the oldest date
from the glaciomarine Presumpscot Formation) (Smith, 1985).
Ages of 13,670 ± 145 and 14,090 ± B.P. for the glaciomarine
muds off New Hampshire and Maine (Birch, 1990; Kelley et al.,
1992) lend additional support to an age of about 14,000 B.P. for
the transgression. Cape Cod, Nantucket Sound, and the south-
ern end of Cape Cod Bay were not inundated during this marine
transgression as isostatic rise in the peripheral bulge due to
glacial unloading in adjacent regions exceeded the rate of eusta-
tic rise in sea level prior to 16,000 B.P.
This high stand was short-lived, as the crust rebounded
rapidly when its glacial ice load was removed. As the crust rose,
sea level dropped and by 12,000 B.P. it was at a level –43 m
below its present one off northeastern Massachusetts (Oldale et
al., 1993). Depth estimates during this low stand range from
–22 m in Boston (Kaye and Barghoorn, 1964), –31 m off New
Hampshire (Birch, 1990), –55 to –60 m off Maine (Belknap et
al., 1989; Shipp et al., 1989), and –40 m off Penobscot Bay,
Maine (Knebel and Scanlon, 1985). The sea-level elevation esti-
mated by Kaye and Barghoorn (1964) for Boston, which is
based on dates from freshwater peats at elevations ranging from
–8.3 to –0.2 m below present sea level, is probably too shallow;
an elevation of –30 m below present level may be more realistic
(Fig. 17). Similarly, the –43-m elevation estimated by Oldale et
al. (1993) by drawing a smooth curve through the points also
may be too shallow; an elevation of about –55 m below present
level is obtained if the curve is drawn through the Merrimack
paleodelta and the Jeffreys Ledge barrier spit points (Fig. 17).
Oldale et al. (1993) also proposed that the depth of –31 m for the
New Hampshire shelf (Birch, 1990) may be too shallow point-
ing out that the truncated tops of the drumlins east of the Isles of
Shoals (Birch, 1984) indicate a low stand of –55 to –60 m. By
redrawing the sea-level curve of Birch (1990), an elevation of
about –40 m is obtained. Even with these corrections these
depths are shallower than the values displayed by the Barbados
14C sea-level curve where depths range from –72 m 12,000 B.P.
and –63 m 11,000 B.P. below the present level. If this difference
is real, then from 12,000 to 11,000 B.P. the crust in New Eng-
land was still not in equilibrium but was rebounding, and it was
only much later, about 6,000 B.P., that the crust in the region
became relatively stable. A slowing of crustal uplift coupled
with an increase in eustatic sea-level rise 12,000 B.P. caused the
sea level to rise again in New England (Oldale et al., 1993).
Such an increase in meltwater discharge 12,000 B.P. is sup-
ported by the Barbados sea-level curve (Fairbanks, 1989).
The postglacial low stand in New England not only
becomes deeper toward the north (–43 m off Massachusetts and
–65 m off Maine) but also younger. It is 12,000 B.P. off north-
eastern Massachusetts, 12,080 to 10,820 B.P. off New Hamp-
shire (Birch, 1990; recalculated by Oldale et al., 1993, as
11,400 B.P.), and approximately 11,000 B.P. off Maine (Kelley
et al., 1992). Features associated with this sea-level regression
include a paleodelta off the Merrimack River (Oldale et al.,
1983), a submerged barrier beach and lagoon on Jeffreys Ledge
(Oldale, 1985a), the seaward limit of shelf valleys off New
Hampshire (Birch, 1984), a paleodelta off the Kennebunk River
in Maine (Belknap et al., 1989), submerged terraces off Maine
(Shipp et al., 1989), and a regressive unconformity in Penob-
scot Bay, Maine (Knebel and Scanlon, 1985). The magnitude
of this crustal rebound and the intense deformation of the
coastal plain and drift sediments by ice pressure in Gay Head,
Martha’s Vineyard, are clear indications that the Laurentide ice
sheet was appreciably thick at its southern terminus in New
England. The peripheral bulge associated with this ice was
located an unknown distance from its margin, perhaps on the
mid- to outer shelf south of Martha’s Vineyard and Nantucket
Island and mid- to outer shelf of Georges Bank. Dillon and
Oldale (1978) proposed that subsidence of this bulge caused the
 Late Quaternary construction of Cape Cod, Massachusetts
shoreline features formed during the Holocene transgression on
the mid- to outer shelf to be downwarped northeast of an inflec-
tion zone off central New Jersey. However, the lack of inunda-
tion of Nantucket Sound during the 14,000 B.P. transgression
suggests migration of the peripheral bulge through time, as
expected by physical arguments.
In Boston, sea level has been reported to be within –0.6 m
of its present level by 2,800 B.P. and about –0.5 m by 1,700
B.P. (Kaye and Barghoorn, 1964). However, Redfield (1967),
using cores from the Neponset River, found sea level to be
about –6 m at 2,800 B.P., and –3 m at 1,700 B.P. Redfield
(1967) discounted the Kaye and Barghoorn (1964) measure-
ments since they were taken in filled marshland, where com-
paction likely affected the vertical position of the samples. In
Barnstable, along the north shore of Cape Cod Bay, sea level
reached an elevation of –5 m at about 3,000 B.P. and –2 m at
2,000 B.P. (Redfield and Rubin, 1962). Tide gauge data indi-
cate that coastal New England is currently subsiding relative to
sea level at rates ranging from about 2 mm a–1 in Massachusetts
to approximately 3 mm a–1 in Maine (Emery and Aubrey, 1991,
p. 134; Gehrels and Belknap, 1993). Thus, subsidence today
increases toward the direction of greatest isostatic crustal col-
lapse of the peripheral bulge due to glacial unloading. This land
subsidence relative to sea level is due to a combination of eusta-
tic rise in sea level and tectonic processes, a neotectonism that
may be the result of migration of the peripheral bulge in the
direction of the retreating ice front. As the Laurentide ice sheet
expanded southward, its weight caused the crust to subside and
subcrustal flow to take place in the direction of glacial growth.
This flow led to the formation of a peripheral bulge, whose
relief reflected not just the weight at the southern periphery of
the ice sheet, but the total ice load on the crust. As the ice sheet
retreated northward, the bulge migrated with it and the formerly
depressed crust was uplifted. Because the relief of the periph-
eral bulge reflected the load of the whole ice sheet, the crust
rose above isostatic equilibrium. As the bulge migrated farther
northward, it became more subdued and the uplifted crust
slowly subsided. That relative rise in sea level is slower in
Massachusetts than in Maine indicates the crust in the former is
closer to equilibrium, a consistent finding because Massachu-
setts was deglaciated before Maine. This subsidence is respon-
sible for sea level being 1.8, 3.0, 2.7, and about 1 m higher than
eustatic sea level in Boston 7,000, 6,000, 5,000, and 4,000 B.P.
as reported by Kaye and Barghoorn (1964) (Fig. 5). Since
3,000 B.P. the subsidence rate has been slow, no more than 1 to
2 m ka–1, and cannot be detected in curves constructed from
radiocarbon dates. This subsidence, together with an eustatic
rise in sea level of 1 to 2 mm a–1, is responsible for the present
relative rise in sea level in the region of 2 to 3 mm a–1.
A similar trend also was noted by Clark (1980) in his
numerical models of sea-level changes on a viscoelastic Earth.
According to Clark, relative change in sea level since the Wis-
consin was not constant because of the effect of ice/water load-
ing on the surface of the Earth and the geoid. He used a
23
numerical model that included the above effects to predict rela-
tive sea-level change on a spherical viscoelastic Earth with real-
istic ocean and ice configurations and a realistic melting
history. Using the model, Clark divided the Earth into five
zones of relative sea-level changes. Zones I and II are pertinent
to the above discussion. In Zone I, the glaciated area, the elas-
tic and viscous uplift of the ocean floor, combined with the fall
of the geoid, led to rapid uplift of the land relative to sea level.
Zone II, the zone of the peripheral bulge, is characterized by
submergence as a result of the collapse of the bulge. The transi-
tion between zones I and II is the region to which the peripheral
bulge migrates, collapsing at the same time as it migrates. Clark
(1980) found this transitional zone to be characterized first by
emergence (uplift) and later by submergence (subsidence). Pre-
dicted relative sea-level curves for the Cumberland Peninsula,
Baffin Bay, Canada, for example, indicate that emergence
occurred soon after ice-sheet melting, and that this was fol-
lowed by submergence resulting from the collapse of a migrat-
ing peripheral bulge.
According to Clark, this submergence could not be due to a
eustatic rise in sea level because he found no such rise during the
past 5,000 yr. However, the sea-level curve from Barbados shows
that sea level rose about 7 m during that time (Fairbanks, 1989,
his Fig. 2). Relative sea level in southern New England today is
rising at a rate of 2 to 3 mm a–1. Approximately 1 to 2 mm a–1 of
this rise is believed to be due to a worldwide eustatic rise in sea
level. If the remainder is due to continuing collapse of the periph-
eral bulge, then the effect of the collapse has persisted in southern
New England for nearly 12,000 to 14,000 yr after the region was
deglaciated. Such a persistence may not be realistic geologically.
Relative rise of sea level in formerly glaciated regions, such as
southern New England, may be due to other causes. Because it is
not possible to isolate and quantify the causes of this rise in rela-
tive sea level and how far back in time these causes persisted, we
use the trends displayed by the Barbados, Boston, and Barnstable
sea-level curves in the discussions that follow. These curves indi-
cate that sea level was at –40 m about 10,000 B.P., about –30 m
9,500 B.P., about –10 m 6,000 B.P., and that it approached its
present position about 1,000 B.P.
GLACIAL CONSTRUCTION OF CAPE COD
The geologic investigations summarized above have
yielded a coherent picture of the genetic geomorphic evolution
of the Cape Cod region. There is no doubt that the Laurentide
ice sheet and associated fluvio-glacio and glaciomarine
processes played the major role in sculpting the Cape. Although
this glaciation has overwhelmed features associated with older
geologic events, the older features are still recognizable. Base-
ment in the present site of the upper Cape is dominated by an
east-west–trending high cut in two by a north-south valley
extending from Cape Cod Bay to Nantucket Sound. In turn, the
eastern basement segment is also nearly cut in two by a smaller
valley. In the lower Cape, basement is scarred by an east-
west–trending Late Triassic–Early Jurassic rift (Fig. 18). Simi-
24 E. Uchupi and Others

lar rift basins also occur in the western Gulf of Maine. The
topographic highs of the islands and associated lows north of
the islands are a cuesta/lowland terrain carved out of the shelf
strata by fluvial erosion during regressions that may date as far
back as the Oligocene. Long and Block Islands, Martha’s Vine-
yard, Nantucket Island, and Georges Bank are segments of this
west-east–trending cuesta, which extends from Long Island to
the Grand Banks of Newfoundland via the outer banks on the
Nova Scotian Shelf (inset map, Fig. 1). Landward of the
cuesta’s north-facing scarp is a lowland floored by coastal plain

Figure 18. Pre-Wisconsin geologic map of the Cape Cod region. Compiled from Ballard and Uchupi
(1975, Fig. 5), O’Hara and Oldale (1980, Fig. 4; 1987, Fig. 4), Oldale and O’Hara (1990, Fig. 5), and
Oldale et al. (1973, Plate 2A). The erosional remnants identified in the map as coastal plain could be
pre–late Wisconsinan glacial deposits. B.H. = Basement High.
 Late Quaternary construction of Cape Cod, Massachusetts
sediments immediately off the scarp and basement farther
north. In Cape Cod Bay, north of the bay and east of the lower
Cape are erosional remnants resting on basement that may be of
coastal plain origin, although the possibility that they represent
pre–late Wisconsin glacial deposits merits consideration. The
water gaps of the fluvial system responsible for the formation
of this terrain are represented today by Vineyard Sound, the val-
leys between Martha’s Vineyard and Nantucket Island, the low
between the eastern end of Nantucket Sound and the lower
Cape, Little Stellwagen Basin between the lower Cape and
Stellwagen Bank, and Great South and Northeast channels on
either side of Georges Bank.
The fluvially carved terrain was probably modified by
glacial processes during the Illinoian (Stage 6), and possibly
even earlier glaciations, but the magnitude of these changes is
yet to be resolved. After the Illinoian glaciation the region was
inundated by marine waters as recorded by the deposits in
Sankaty Head, Nantucket Island, and the marine sediments
incorporated into the Wisconsinan glacial deposits of Cape
Cod. The most significant change of the Cape’s fluvial terrain
occurred during the Laurentide glaciation in the late Wisconsi-
nan. The Laurentide ice sheet reached its maximum southern
position about 20,000 B.P., a southern terminus defined by the
southern limit of abundant gravel mapped by Schlee and Pratt
(1970). The lobate ice front was composed of the Narra-
gansett–Buzzards Bay lobe in the west, the Cape Cod Bay lobe
in the center, and the South Channel, the largest lobe, in the east
(Fig. 19). The viscoelastic models described by Peltier (1982)
and Birchfield and Grumbine (1985) indicate that a trough with
a relief of 200 to 300 m and a peripheral bulge with a relief of
about 70 m were present beyond the ice front.
This proglacial terrain morphology probably varied with
time and space as a result of the variability of the ice sheet
thickness in space and time, increase in glacier lobation, rapid
fluctuations in the position of the ice front, and shifts in the
centers of outflow (Teller, 1987). The peripheral bulge off
southern New England was probably located at midshelf and
possibly even farther south. An amphitheater-shaped depression
on the outer shelf, the Mud Patch, and the gravitational struc-
tures on the continental slope may be the result of this crustal
uplift. A lake may have occupied the 200- to 300-m-deep
depression between the peripheral bulge and the glacial front in
the area of the islands. Retreat of the lobes varied; the deposits
associated with the western Narragansett–Buzzards Bay lobe
are the oldest, and those associated with the eastern South
Channel lobe are the youngest. Oldale (1992, p. 39) stated that
the west-east differential retreat of the lobes may be due to the
size of the basin occupied by the lobes, with the low occupied
by the South Channel lobe being the largest and deepest. The
subglacial channels in Nantucket Sound probably were carved
out of the coastal plain strata at the time when the ice sheet
front was at its maximum southerly position (Fig. 19). As the
ice lobes retreated northward, the drift deposits of the islands
and Nantucket Shoals began to accumulate with the drift in the
25
islands being graded to a possible lake that may have been pre-
sent between the peripheral bulge and the ice sheet front. A
readvance during the retreat deformed the coastal plain strata
and outwash deposits to form the moraine in Gay Head,
Martha’s Vineyard.
Sometime prior to 18,000 B.P., the Buzzards Bay lobe
retreated to a position west of the Elizabeth Islands, the Cape
Cod Bay lobe to the northern edge of the upper Cape, and the
South Channel lobe to just north of Great South Channel.
Stages in this retreat are documented by the ice contact deposits
along the south shore, the subsurface, and the north shore of the
upper Cape. As the Cape Cod Bay lobe retreated northward, a
lake began to form in the present position of Nantucket Sound,
a lake that during its maximum development extended well into
the upper Cape (see Profiles A-A′′ and B-B′: Fig. 6). This lake
may be contemporary to the lakes that were formed in Long
Island and Block Island Sounds during late Pleistocene glacial
retreat (Lewis and Needell, 1987; Needell and Lewis, 1984;
Needell et al., 1987). The lake in Nantucket Sound was
dammed to the north by outwash deposits in the upper Cape, to
the northeast by the ice-sheet front, to the south by the outwash
deposits of the islands, and to the east by the outwash deposits
of Nantucket Shoals (Fig. 20). Seeps from the proglacial lake
eroded the valleys in the drift of Martha’s Vineyard and Nan-
tucket Island, damming the lake to the south. The outwash
plains in the upper Cape that were graded to the lake were built
by a braided meltwater stream system draining southward from
the Cape Cod Bay lobe. The outwash plain in the region of
Nantucket Shoals was built from meltwater deposits originat-
ing in the South Channel lobe; these deposits pinch out atop the
then subaerial continental shelf south of Nantucket Island. As
the streams shifted their courses across the surface of the out-
wash plains, they built a complex of subdeltas superposed one
atop another. As the sediments prograded southward over the
lacustrine deposits, the subglacial valleys in Nantucket Sound
were filled, subduing its topography. With continued sedimen-
tation the lake became progressively smaller, but before the
lake could be filled, it drained—probably to the southwest via
Vineyard Sound and south via Muskeget Channel west of Nan-
tucket Island. Prior to the formation of the Harwich plain, a
temporary readvance of the Cape Cod Bay lobe led to the for-
mation of the Sandwich moraine by the tectonization of the
sediments in front of the lobe. A similar readvance, but some-
what earlier, by the Buzzards Bay lobe also deformed the sedi-
ments along the western edge of the Mashpee Pitted plain to
form the Buzzards Bay moraine.
Shortly after 18,000 B.P., the Cape Cod Bay lobe retreated
farther north to a position in the center of Cape Cod Bay and
the Buzzards Bay lobe northwest of Buzzards Bay. The South
Channel lobe not only retreated northward, it also retreated
eastward, creating an intervening low between itself and the
Cape Cod Bay lobe. As the South Channel lobe retreated away
from the northern edge of Georges Bank and the head of Great
South Channel, marine waters invaded the Gulf of Maine
26 E. Uchupi and Others

depression via Northeast Channel with a sill depth of 232 m
(Fig. 21). These waters flooded westward along the base of the
northern slope of Georges Bank reaching the vicinity of Great
South Channel. A proglacial lake, Cape Cod Bay Glacial Lake,
also was formed at this time between the retreating Cape Cod
Bay lobe, the drift deposits in the upper Cape and South Chan-
nel lobe to the east. As the ice retreated, the lake in Cape Cod
Bay south of it grew northward, keeping pace with the retreat-
ing ice lobe until it covered an area of more than 1,000 km2.
The fine-grained sediment beneath the Provincetown Hook
sands may represent the final stages of deposition in this lake,
as it drained soon after the low between the Great South and
Cape Cod Bay lobes reached the vicinity of Provincetown. The
lake drained first via Manomet Valley to Buzzards Bay and
later via Bass River to Nantucket Sound and finally via Town
Cove to the low at the Cape’s elbow. Deposition in the lake was
via subglacial channels along the grounded Cape Cod lobe
front to the north and from the South Channel lobe to the east.
Some sediment also entered the lake from the south (as attested
by the same deltas), north of the Sandwich moraine.

Figure 19. Map showing the southern limit of the Laurentide ice sheet, the distribution of the sub-
glacial channels in Nantucket Sound, and the southern limit of abundant gravel. Compiled from
Schlee and Pratt (1970, Fig. 15) and Oldale (1982, Fig. 3).
 Late Quaternary construction of Cape Cod, Massachusetts 27

The plains of the lower Cape, like those of the upper Cape,
also were deposited by a braided stream system, but in this case
by a system that originated in the South Channel lobe east of
Cape Cod. During the formation of the lower Cape plains, the
western ice front of the South Channel lobe was located about 3
to 7 km east of the present coast of the lower Cape. The first
plain to be formed was Wellfleet plain, followed by the High-
land, Truro, and Eastham plains (Fig. 2). Prior to the deposition
of the Wellfleet plain, the Cape Cod Bay lobe readvanced
southward, deforming the glaciolacustrine sediments in front of
it to form Billingsgate Shoal. The Buzzards Bay lobe also read-
vanced at the same time to form the Monks Hill moraine along
the west coast of Cape Cod Bay (Fig. 21). Sediments of the
Highland plain (Fig. 2) may have been deposited in a tempo-
rary lake formed as a result of partial collapse of the outwash
plain along the western margin of Great South Channel. The

Figure 20. Paleogeographic map of the Cape Cod region just prior to 18,000 B.P. Map shows posi-
tions of the Buzzards Bay, Cape Cod Bay, and South Channel ice lobes at that time and the extent of
a possible glacial lake in the present area of Nantucket Sound. Map is based on data discussed in the
text. The valleys in Martha’s Vineyard and Nantucket Island were eroded at this time by springs that
originated in the lake that occupied the present position of Nantucket Sound. Possibly the same
process also is responsible for the initial erosion of Muskeget Channel between Martha’s Vineyard
and Nantucket Island.
28 E. Uchupi and Others

Figure 21. Paleogeographic map of the Cape Cod region soon after 18,000 B.P. Location of glacial
front and associated glacial lakes is from Larson (1982, Fig. 3), and the valley distribution from O’Hara
and Oldale (1987, Fig. 6) and Uchupi and Oldale (1994, Figs. 1, 2). Larson (1982) estimated that the
Cape Cod Bay Glacial Lake ultimately covered an area of more than 1,000 km2 before it drained.

lake was initially formed after deposition of the Wellfleet plain
and grew as the proximal end of the Truro plain collapsed after
its deposition. The Eastham plain was formed from runoff from
a sublobe of the Great Channel lobe that occupied the present
position of the marshes and bays west of Nauset Beach and the
filled low at the Cape’s elbow. This low extended across the
Cape connecting Cape Cod Bay and the Gulf of Maine via
Town Cove.
Seeps from the proglacial lake in Cape Cod Bay and the
lake atop the outwash plain east of the lower Cape eroded the
channels in Cape Cod. One of the valleys in the lower Cape,
Pamet River, may have extended across the lower Cape to the
lake, leading to the catastrophic drainage of the lake westward
into Cape Cod Bay (Fig. 2). The channels in the upper Cape
may have extended their courses into Nantucket Sound and
beyond, forming the drainage system eroded out of the Pleis-
tocene sediments in the region (Fig. 21). The valleys in the
sound have reliefs of up to 14 m and thalweg depths of more
than 34 m, with a dendritic pattern indicating drainage to the
east to Great South Channel, south toward Muskeget Channel
 Late Quaternary construction of Cape Cod, Massachusetts 29

between Chappaquiddick and Muskeget Islands, and southwest
toward Vineyard Sound between the Elizabeth Islands and
Martha’s Vineyard (Figs. 1, 21). In Vineyard Sound, the valleys
have local relief up to 20 m, thalweg depths greater than 55 m,
and a dendritic pattern indicating drainage southwestward.
Once the lakes in Cape Cod Bay and east of the lower Cape
drained and the groundwater table level dropped, valley forma-
tion on the Cape and vicinity ceased.
By 17,600 B.P., marine conditions were well established in
the western Gulf of Maine, conditions that by no later than
16,000 B.P. had extended to the region of Stellwagen Basin as a
result of crustal subsidence by ice loading (Fig. 22). At this time
meltwater deposition from the South Channel lobe formed Stell-
wagen Bank in the wide reentrant between the South Channel
and Cape Cod Bay ice lobes. Glaciomarine sediments in Stell-
wagen Basin and the region south of the basin were derived
mainly from the Cape Cod Bay lobe. From this basin marine
waters migrated southward to the northern rim of the area for-
merly occupied by Cape Cod Bay Glacial Lake (i.e., the south-
ern edge of Cape Cod Bay). About 3,000 yr later (about 14,000
B.P.), northeastern Massachusetts was ice free and covered by
marine waters as a result of its depression by ice loading. As the

Figure 22. Paleogeographic map of the Cape Cod region about 16,000 B.P. Compiled from various
sources discussed in the text.
30 E. Uchupi and Others

crust rebounded isostatically about 12,000 B.P. (2,000 yr after
deglaciation) after its ice load was removed, sea level dropped
from an elevation of +33 m above the present level to at least
–43 m to possibly –55 m below its present level (Fig. 23). The
north-draining fluvial system in Cape Cod Bay was cut out of
the proglacial and glaciomarine sediments during this regres-
sion. Valleys in this dendritic system have reliefs exceeding
20 m and thalweg depths exceeding 70 m. The amorphous sand
above the glaciomarine sediments may represent a deltaic facies
deposited by this drainage system, or it could be older and may
be a debris flow emplaced prior to the regression (Fig. 22). From
this depth sea level again began to rise, reaching to near its pre-
sent level about 1,000 B.P. As the sea transgressed across the
exposed shelf, it gradually drowned the preexisting fluvial-mod-
ified glacial and glacial terrains. The sea first flooded the valleys
carved out of the shelf strata, creating a complex estuarine sys-
tem. By 10,000 B.P., when sea level was at a depth of –50 m,
the mouth of the channel in Vineyard Sound was flooded as well
as those of the valleys in Cape Cod Bay. When sea level rose to
–30 m about 9,000 B.P., Muskeget Channel flooded. As sea level

Figure 23. Paleogeographic map of the Cape Cod region about 12,000 B.P. during the latest Wis-
consinan regression. Distribution of fluvial valleys in Cape Cod Bay compiled from Oldale and
O’Hara (1990, Fig. 8).
 Late Quaternary construction of Cape Cod, Massachusetts 31

continued to rise, the valleys in Nantucket Sound were filled
with silts and clay of nonmarine and estuarine origin, and by
6,000 B.P. only a narrow coastal zone remained exposed, which
ultimately was drowned when sea level approached to near its
present level 5,000 yr later (Fig. 24).
ORIGINAL GLACIAL SHAPE OF CAPE COD
Toward the end of the Younger Dryas (10,500 to 10,000
B.P.) and before the initiation of the second meltwater pulse
centered at 9,500 B.P. when sea level was about –30 m below
its present level, glacial Cape Cod was much larger than it is
today having had an area of 1,550 km2. During the subsequent
rise in sea level, this area was reduced to 1,075 km2, 69% of the
original glacial Cape Cod (Table 1, Fig. 2). Since then, about
140 km2 have accreted onto this glacial core by marine
processes. The southern margin of the glacial Cape was approx-
imately 1 to 3 km south of the present coast and was marked
by a southerly facing slope having a relief of about 10 m and a
gradient of about 1° to 2°. The southerly draining valleys
formed by spring sapping probably originated in this free sur-
face and from there propagated northward in the manner

Figure 24. Paleogeographic map of the Cape Cod region about 6,000 B.P. Compiled from various
sources discussed in text.
32 E. Uchupi and Others

TABLE 1. AREAS OF GLACIAL GEOMORPHIC

lower Cape, only Pamet Valley probably extended some dis-
TERRAINS OF CAPE COD
tance eastward of the present coast, terminating on the possible
% of Glacial % of Present lake that was formed atop the clastic wedge deposited by the
Terrain Area (km2) Cape Cape
South Channel lobe. Throughout much of the Cape’s elbow, the
Glacial Cape Cod 1,562.3 100.00 edge of the glacial Cape was 1 to 4 km west of the present
Glacial remnant 1,077.4 69.0 shore. Only at the northern end of Nauset Beach was glacial
Eastern terrace (eroded) 193.2 12.4
North terrace (drowned
Cape Cod east of the present Cape, at a distance of about 1 km
and eroded) 11.4 0.7 east of its present position. In this segment of glacial Cape Cod
Billingsgate Shoal 182.6 11.7 was a westerly trending nearly filled embayment with a relief
Coastal segments 97.9 6.3 of 10 to 40 m (Fig. 25E).
Although the southern and northwestern margins of glacial
Present Cape 1,217.5 77.9 100.00
Glacial remnant 1,077.4 88.5
Cape Cod appear to be irregular, the rest of the Cape’s upland
Provincetown Hook 34.6 2.8 periphery may have been smoother. As a whole, the Cape does
Barnstable Marsh, not appear to have had the irregular outline postulated by Davis.
Nauset Spit 12.0 1.0 Topographic irregularities appeared to have been restricted to
Nauset Beach and the plains where spring sapping valleys and kettle holes pro-
adjacent marshes 21.8 1.0
Monomoy Island 9.5 0.8
duced a hummocky topographic texture on the plains, or to ice
Beaches, bars, spits contacts. The glacial Cape upland was essentially two sediment
North shore 38.1 3.1 plains with the one in the upper Cape dipping southward in the
South shore 11.8 1.0 direction of Nantucket Sound, and the one in the lower Cape
West shore 12.5 1.0 dipping westward in the direction of Cape Cod Bay. These two
sediment accumulations were separated by a broad embayment
that may have served as a connection with the Gulf of Maine
described by Uchupi and Oldale (1994). Drainage down the and Cape Cod Bay lowland. South and north of the upland were
free surface to Nantucket Sound also carved a fluvial system in low areas currently occupied by Nantucket Sound and Cape
this region, with Vineyard Sound and Muskeget Channel serv- Cod Bay. East of the upland was a marine embayment that
ing as the main water gaps of the system (Fig. 21). The glacial extended the length of the Wilkinson Basin complex in the
Cape’s northern margin was 1 to 0.5 km north of the present western Gulf of Maine. Present positions of Provincetown
shore and its west side about 1 to 1.5 km west of the present Hook and Stellwagen Basin also were inundated by these
one. These boundaries also were marked by low cliffs having marine waters, with only Stellwagen Bank rising above its gen-
reliefs on the order of 10 m and gradients of about 1° to 2°. eral level to form an island.
Like valleys in the upper Cape, those on the lower Cape also
originated along this free surface and from there propagated HOLOCENE MODIFICATIONS
upslope eastward and extended their courses westward down-
slope onto the lowland beyond Billingsgate Shoal (Fig. 2). Phase I: 9,500–6,000 B.P.
Extending southwesterly from the west side of the glacial Cape
for a distance of 18 km was Billingsgate Shoal, a broad Modifications of glacial Cape Cod by marine processes dur-
moraine having a relief of about 10 m. On its northern side, ing the Holocene transgression can be divided into two phases:
glacial Cape Cod terminated on a north-facing cliff with a relief Phase I, which began about 9,500 B.P. and terminated about
of nearly 80 m and a gradient of 2° (Fig. 25D). Our investiga- 6,000 B.P.; and Phase II, from 6,000 B.P. to the present. During
tion indicates that the lower Cape was much wider than Davis Phase I, sea level rose at a rate of about 6 m/1,000 yr from –30 to
(1896, 1954) believed when he proposed that the glacial lower –10 m below its present level. In Phase II sea level rose to near its
Cape extended about 4 km east of its present position. Our present level about 1,000 B.P. at a rate of 2.0 m/1,000 yr, or about
study shows that at 70°5′W, the glacial Cape coast was 2.8 km one-third of the previous rate. During this period crustal uplift
east of the present one; at 70°W 4.5 km east, just slightly north due to ice unloading probably terminated and the crust began to
of 42°N, 5.5 km; 6.3 km east at 42°N, 7.0 km at 39°55′N; and subside again as the peripheral bulge decayed. This movement
south of 39°55′N it was 6.0 km east of the present coast. Like may still be taking place today accounting in part for a relative
the present coast, this glacial shore also was characterized by rise in sea level of about 2 to 3 mm a–1.
an eastward-facing scarp. The cliff’s relief when sea level was The major modifications of glacial Cape Cod during Phase
–40 m below the present one ranged from 95 m at about I were massive erosion of the east and north sides of the lower
39°57′N to 60 m just north of 39°50′N and 70°05′W. Today the Cape, the filling of the low at the Cape’s elbow and the drown-
relief of the eastward-facing Atlantic cliffs of the lower Cape ing of the Billingsgate Shoal moraine, Stellwagen Bank, most
ranges from over 40 to 18 m above the present sea level with a of Nantucket Shoals and Sound, and Cape Cod Bay. During the
maximum gradient of 35°. Of the spring sapping valleys on the flooding of Nantucket Shoals and Sound, tidal currents and
 Late Quaternary construction of Cape Cod, Massachusetts 33

Figure 25. Schematic geologic cross sections (locations shown in Fig. 2) of the lower Cape. C, The
section extending the length of the Provincetown Hook was compiled from data of Zeigler et al.
(1965, Fig. 2), and Oldale (1988, Fig. 5). This cross section differs from the one in Zeigler et al.
(1965) in that we assumed that the red clay in the well at Pilgrim Lake is a postglacial deposit and
not part of the Truro plain as postulated by them. D, The section extending eastward from the lower
Cape was reconstructed from the seismic reflection profile in Figure 14 and geophysical data from
the lower Cape (Oldale, 1969) and Cape Cod Bay (Oldale and O’Hara, 1990). E, The section in the
area of the Cape’s elbow was compiled from the seismic reflection profile in Figure 13, and geo-
physical data from the Cape (Oldale, 1969) and Cape Cod Bay (Oldale and O’Hara, 1990).

waves led to extensive reworking of the sediments, and the for-
mer outwash plain southeast of Cape Cod was slowly trans-
formed to the present ridge-trough configuration of Nantucket
Shoals. Most of the detritus winnowed from the sediments was
transported westward to form Fan A and into the Mud Patch
along the shelf’s edge south of Nantucket Island.
Although poorly documented, the northwest-facing cliff
defining the northwest tip of the Truro plain apparently
retreated about 3 km prior to the formation of Provincetown
Hook and a relatively steeply dipping terrace with a gradient of
0.8° was cut out of the cliff (Fig. 25C). Possibly this bench-like
feature is sediment block that slumped from the cliffs as they
retreated eastward. The debris-like sequence in the subsurface
at Race Point and Provincetown may have originated in this
slump (Fig. 25C). Cliff retreat along the western edge of the
Truro plain and the east side of the lower Cape was due to wave
action and submarine erosion to a depth of about 10 m. This
profile of erosion was thought to be in equilibrium with long-
term sea state (Zeigler et al., 1964b). Thus, the outer edge of
the terrace on the east side of the lower Cape at a depth of
–40 m was probably cut at the time when sea level was at a
depth of –30 m about 9,500 B.P. Submarine erosion was prob-
ably as important in producing the erosional surface as were
processes at sea level. Studies by Zeigler et al. (1964a, Table 1)
on the eastern lower Cape indicate that erosion below sea level
today is slightly greater than wave erosion at the coast, yielding
a yearly average volume of about 330,000 m3 of sediment com-
pared to the yearly sediment volume provided by coastal wave
erosion of 310,000 m3, a combined total of 640,000 m3.
Cliff retreat by wave erosion is the result of undercutting
creating oversteepening, subsequent collapse of a segment of the
cliff, and transport of the slumped mass by waves. When the
34 E. Uchupi and Others

cliff was initially bordered by deep water, the slumped sediment

would tend to accumulate beyond the cliff and the cliff would
be reexposed to erosion immediately, but as the terrace widened
and the slump mass accumulated at the foot of the cliff, it was
protected from further erosion by wave action until the slumped
sediments were dispersed. As collapse was a local phenomenon,
cliff retreat probably occurred in segments. A cliff segment
would be undercut by wave action and a slump would take
place. This segment of the cliff would then be temporarily pro-
tected from further erosion, and erosion would shift to another
cliff segment. While this segment was being undercut and
another slump was formed, the older slumped mass would be
reworked by waves again exposing the cliff segment to wave
erosion. These undercutting/slumping/transport events along the
cliff face are so close in time, however, that within the resolution
of geologic time cliff retreat is synchronous along its length.
The eastward-facing sea cliffs of the lower Cape are
retreating today at the rate of about 0.8 m a–1 (Zeigler et al.,
1964b). Thus, 1,000 B.P., when sea level reached its present
position, the cliffs were 800 m east of their present position.
The seaward edge of the terrace fronting the cliffs at a depth of
about –40 m marks the position of the cliffs at about 9,500 B.P.,
when sea level was at a depth of –30 m. The rate of cliff erosion
was greater at the point where the terrace fronting it is widest,
as attested by the values given below. The average rate of cliff
retreat from 9,500 to 1,000 B.P. ranged from 0.3 to 0.5 m a–1
north of 42°N where the terrace is 2,700 to 4,000 m wide, 0.6 to
0.9 m a–1 from 42°N to 41°53′N where it is 5,000 to 8,000 m
wide, and 0.5 m a–1 south of 41°53′N where the terrace is 4,000
Figure 26. A, 3.5-kHz echo-sounding profiles of the erosional terrace
m wide. The surface of this wave-cut terrace, however, does not east of the lower Cape. Inset map shows locations of the profiles. Ter-
display a uniform gradient and its continuity is disrupted by races along the profiles are indicated by bracketed heavy line. Num-
three groups of secondary terraces with declivities of 7′ or less. bers along the edge of the terrace (dotted line) in the inset map
The slopes separating these secondary terraces display gradi- represent the relief of the clastic wedge before the terrace was eroded
during the Holocene transgression. This relief is relative to the depth
ents ranging from 1°13′ to 9′ (Fig. 26A). These slope variations
of sea level at about 10,000 B.P. when it was –40 m below its present
are particularly noticeable in depths shallower than about 30 m. level. The numbers along the coast are the relief (in meters) of the
As the declivities of these erosional surfaces were controlled by present cliff above sea level. B, Depth distribution of terraces along
rise in sea level and rate of erosion (i.e., gradient-rate of sea profiles.
level rise/rate of erosion or cliff retreat), then either the rate of
sea-level rise or rate of erosion changed as the terrace was cut.
That there may have been episodic minor stillstands during the Stone and Borns (1986), for example, suggested that isostatic
Holocene submergence of southern New England is suggested rebound in southern New England was between 0.7 to 0.9 m
by paleoshoreline features in Long Island Sound at depths of km–1 to the north of Cape Cod. However, the sporadic varia-
–37, –27, and –25 below present sea level (Gayes and Boku- tions of gradients in that direction fail to support either isostatic
niewicz, 1991). Inferred ages of these shorelines range from rebound or collapse of the peripheral bulge as the causes for the
10,500/10,000 B.P. for the –37-m terrace to 9,500/9,000 B.P. change in gradient along strike. Thus, this change in the ter-
for the –25-m structure. As the gradients off the lower Cape race’s gradient along strike is probably due to variations in the
varied not only in a seaward direction but also along strike, then rate of cliff retreat. Rate of erosion is controlled by oceano-
these factors (sea-level rise, rate of cliff retreat) must have var- graphic factors and the erodibility of the sediments being
ied both with time and place to account for gradient variations removed. This erodibility is controlled by the texture and fabric
along strike. of the sediments. The lithology of the present cliffs consisting
The only way the relative sea-level rise could vary along of cross-bedded sands, gravelly sands, and a clay layer, changes
the 33-km length of the terrace is if tectonism due to glacial unpredictably along the strike (Fig. 28; Zeigler et al., 1964b;
unloading, collapse of the peripheral bulge, or some other Koteff et al., 1967). The sections measured by Zeigler et al.
process varied along the terrace’s strike. Groen et al. (1986) and (1964b) and Koteff et al. (1967) were at the distal end of the
 Late Quaternary construction of Cape Cod, Massachusetts 35

sediment wedges deposited by the South Channel lobe where

sediment variations along the strike would be minimal. Such
lateral changes in facies were probably even more pronounced
near the sediment sources. Yet as shown by Figure 26B, the
outer edge of the terrace displays a relatively uniform gradient
along the strike; it is here that the secondary terraces are best
developed, suggesting that cliff retreat at that time was rela-
tively uniform along the strike. Variations in gradients along the
terrace’s surface also are difficult to explain as the result of
oceanographic factors. As is the case today, maximum erosion
of the cliffs probably was by northeasterly storms. Although
these storms varied in their intensity with time, there is no
obstacle to preventing one segment of the east-facing cliffs
from being attacked more intensely than another. Although the
crest of Georges Bank was above sea level at the time terrace
cutting was initiated 9,500 B.P., and may have acted as a barrier
from long-period waves from the east and southeast as noted by
Zeigler et al. (1965), this crest would not explain why one part
of the cliffs was eroding faster than another. Thus, at present we
are not able to separate the causative sources responsible for the
formation of the erosional terrace. Whatever the causes of this
variation in the rate of erosion along strike, they must even out
over time as the face of the present cliff is relatively smooth, an
outline also displayed in older charts (Zeigler et al., 1964b).
The terrace eroded from 9,500 to 6,000 B.P. (the position
of the 6,000 B.P. shoreline was determined by extrapolation
from the positions of the 1,000 and 9,500 B.P. shorelines) has
an area of 86 km2. The sediment wedge eroded to form the ero-
sional terrace ranged in thickness from 95 to 60 m along its sea-
ward edge to 70 to 45 m at its landward edge, averaging about
70 m in thickness. Thus, on the order of 6.1 km3 of sediment
were eroded both above and below sea level to form the terrace.
Figure 27. The eastward-facing sea cliffs in the area of the Highland
Today about 82% of the glacial material eroded from the cliffs is Light in Truro. Note the two massive relict slump structures with their
available to nourish the coastal features with 18% being lost to extensive vegetation cover in the center of the photograph. The smaller
deeper water offshore (Zeigler et al., 1964b, 1965). If similar gravitational structures defacing the cliff do not have this cover attest-
partitioning existed 9,500 yr ago, about 1.1 km3 eroded from the ing to their more recent age. The shoreline also shows repetitive
cliffs was transported eastward to form Fan C. Contribution to hooked bars attesting to ample sediment supply. Photograph by D. G.
Aubrey, courtesy of the Public Information Office, Woods Hole
the fan probably exceeded this amount when the shoreline was Oceanographic Institution.
located closer to the terrace’s edge. Slope retreat then as today
(Figs. 27, 28) must have been enhanced by mass wasting
(slumping and gravitational sliding), as evidenced by the debris
flow at the base of the slope (Fig. 14). As the cliff retreated west- coastal features are neither growing nor diminishing in volume,
ward, sediment contribution to Fan C slowly diminished and Zeigler et al. (1964a) estimated that the residence time of the
most of the finer sediments were probably transported eastward sediments in the beaches and nearshore bars was 38.2 yr and on
beyond the fan into deeper water. The remainder of the sedi- the offshore bar 57.2 yr. Similar residence times probably also
ments eroded from the cliffs, like today, initially accumulated in characterize the formation of the terrace.
beaches and nearshore (43.3%) and offshore bars (36.3%) (Zei- At that time, 9,500 B.P., Georges Bank was partially
gler et al., 1964a, Table III). The gravel fraction tended to con- exposed, a barrier limiting long-period waves from the east and
centrate at the toe of the beach, although it may have spread over southeast as a result of which sediment transport to the north
the foreshore part of the beach or part of the inner bar during was inhibited. However, no such barrier existed for waves from
some sea conditions (Zeigler et al., 1964a). In addition to gravel, northerly directions at that time, and as a result, sediment trans-
the beach and nearshore bar also tended to be sites of very port to the south was enhanced (Zeigler et al., 1965). The
coarse to coarse sand deposition and the finer fraction accumu- depocenter of this southward transport was the nearly filled off-
lated in the offshore bar (Fig. 29). On the assumption that the shore low at the Cape’s elbow including the region of the pre-
 36
E. Uchupi and Others
Figure 28. Diagrammatic stratigraphic sections from the Highland Light Tower region in the lower
Cape. The numbers at the top of the figure indicate distances in meters between the sections. From
Koteff et al. (1967).
 Late Quaternary construction of Cape Cod, Massachusetts
Figure 29. Textural variation of the drift on the cliff and the sands on
the beach, and near- and offshore bars on the eastern lower Cape.
Modified from Zeigler et al. (1964a, Fig. 6). Note that the larger
medium diameters occur in the beach and nearshore bar (0.78 to
0.74 mm) and the finest in the offshore bar (0.35 mm). The drift on
the cliff has an intermediate size of 0.58 mm.
sent marshes and bays west of Nauset-Chatham beaches. The
marine sediments filling these lows have an area of about
260 km2, and range in thickness from 45 to 60 m between
Pleasant Bay at Strong Point and Chatham Bars Inlet (LeClair
et al., 1978), 10 to 30 m on the shelf (Aubrey et al., 1982), and
40 to 20 m from the outer shelf to the base of the slope. Their
average thickness is about 30 m, forming a volume of 7.8 km3.
About 64% (5.0 km3) of this fill was derived from the north,
with the remaining 36% coming from the Harwich and East-
ham plains west of the depression. The sediments near the for-
mer Chatham Bars Inlet rest on an irregular reflector that
LeClair et al. (1978) and McClennen (1979) suggested may be
the erosional surface of Tertiary(?) age or a boundary within the
Pleistocene. We suspect that it marks the top of the Wisconsi-
nan glacial deposits and is a transgressive unconformity. The
thickness of the postglacial unit in the Chatham Bars Inlet may
indicate either a nearby source or that LeClair et al. (1978) used
an unusually high velocity to convert travel time to thickness in
meters. The upper 6 m of the Holocene marine sequence near
Chatham Bars Inlet are disrupted by filled channels that are
similar in size to the present tidal inlet near Morris Island
(LeClair et al., 1978; McClennen, 1979).
On the shelf the unit is acoustically diverse lacking internal
reflectors in places and in others having many discontinuous
horizons (Aubrey et al., 1982). Lack of unconformities within
the upper unit indicates that its emplacement was continuous. As
near Chatham Bars Inlet, the Holocene sediments on the shelf
37
are separated from the more massive glacial lower unit
deposited by a sublobe of the South Channel lobe by a promi-
nent reflector. This surface is channelized, features which
Aubrey et al. (1982) believed were eroded subaerially by dis-
charge from Cape Cod Bay Glacial Lake. Along the shelf’s edge
the unit is characterized by a sequence of foreset beds dipping
toward the east and south. These trends point to both northerly
and westerly sources for the Holocene sediments in the region.
Eastward progradation toward the Gulf of Maine led to the con-
struction of Fan B and westward progradation partially filled the
lows west of Nauset-Chatham beaches. Once they were filled
and the barrier beaches along the present shore developed, the
coastal lows become sites of marsh accumulation.
During Phase I, sediments derived from erosion from the
northwest-facing cliffs defining the western limit of the Truro
plain also were transported southward by littoral drift. The
depocenter of these sediments, however, was in Cape Cod Bay
west of the lower Cape. During Phase I, extending from 9,500
to 6,000 B.P., Stellwagen Bank and most of Billingsgate Shoal
moraine, Cape Cod Bay, Nantucket Shoals, and Nantucket
Sound were drowned. As Stellwagen Bank disappeared beneath
the sea, its top was truncated with the resulting detritus being
transported both westward into Stellwagen Basin and south-
ward into Cape Cod Bay. During the erosion of the bank a lag
deposit of very coarse gravel was formed on its top, a cover that
has served as an armor protecting the bank top from further
extensive erosion. Also during Phase I, the hook at the south-
western end of the Stellwagen Bank may have formed from
sand displaced from the top of the bank. Construction of the
spit terminated about 7,500 B.P. when the 18-m-deep northwest
part of the bank was submerged (Zeigler et al., 1965).
As the Billingsgate Shoal moraine was submerged below
sea level, its crest also was smoothed by a combination of ero-
sion of the highs and filling of the lows. The southwesterly tip
of the shoal was truncated at this time, and the resulting ero-
sional surface was buried by sediments derived from the north-
east- and the northwest-side slopes of the shoal. These
sediments were transported to their site of accumulation by
southwestward littoral drift. As the marine waters transgressed
over most of Cape Cod Bay and Nantucket Sound, an extensive
unconformity was cut on the sediments. Decelerations of the
transgression led to local accumulation of beach and bar
deposits on top of the unconformity.
Phase II: 6,000 B.P.–Present
North, south, and west shores and Sandy Neck/Barnsta-
ble Marsh. From 6,000 to 1,000 yr ago when sea level
approached to near its present level, the rate of relative sea-level
rise decreased from 6 to 2 m ka–1, and crustal subsidence due to
the collapse of the peripheral bulge, which began during
Phase I, gradually died out or slowed down. The relative rise in
sea level of 2 to 3 mm a–1 documented by tide-gauge data dur-
ing the last 100 yr may result in part from other tectonic forces.
38 E. Uchupi and Others
During this period of relative low rate of sea-level rise, features
such as Sandy Neck/Barnstable Marsh, Provincetown Hook,
Nauset Beach and associated marshes, and Monomoy Island
were built (Figs. 30 through 33). Also at this time, the drowning
of Billingsgate Shoal, Cape Cod Bay, and Nantucket Sound and
Shoals was completed, and the Cape’s south, north, and west
shores retreated 1 to 3 km from their former positions (Fig. 2).
The numerous bars and pocket beaches, and small spits
fronting the glacial terrain in the south, north, and west shores
began to form after this retreat, a development that still contin-
ues today. On the south shore these constructional forms have a
composite area of 11.8 km2, making up 0.97% of the area of
the present Cape (Table 1). Similar features, exclusive of Sandy
Neck Spit, on the north shore have an area of 36.1 km2 making
up 3.13% of the present Cape, and on the west shore they have
an area of 12.5 km2 constituting 1.03% of the present Cape.
The littoral features on the south shore were formed by both
easterly and westerly flowing drift, those on the north shore
mostly by an easterly flowing one, and the ones on the west
coast by both a south- and north-flowing littoral drift. As the
south shore retreated northward, the south-trending spring sap-
ping valleys in the upper Cape were flooded to form the elon-
gated bays that dominate this shore today (Fig. 34). Connection
of coastal kettle lakes via tidal inlets, such as Oyster Pond, has
added further irregularities to the outline of the south shore of
the upper Cape (Fig. 35).
The most prominent constructional feature of the upper
Cape is Sandy Neck Spit and associated Barnstable Marsh,
having a combined area of 12.0 km2 (the spit has an area of
10.5 km2 and the marsh, 1.5 km2); they make up 0.98% (0.86%
of which represents the spit and the remaining 0.12%, the
marsh) of the present Cape (Table 1). Redfield (1965) recon-
Figure 30. Photograph of Barnstable Marsh looking east with Sandy Neck on the left and the marsh
on the right. Photograph courtesy of D. S. Blackwood, U.S. Geological Survey, Woods Hole.
structed from soundings and borings of the peat the develop-
ment during the past 4,000 yr of the salt marshes and Sandy
Neck Spit that shelters them; its rate of vertical accretion and
rate of sea-level rise were determined from 14C age determina-
tions of the peat. During the creation of the spit-marsh com-
plex, sea level rose at a rate of about 3 × 10–3 m a–1 from at least
3,700 to 2,100 B.P. and about 1.0 × 10–3 m a–1 during the last
2,100 yr (Redfield and Rubin, 1962). Interpretation of the ver-
tical growth of the marsh was determined from the vertical dis-
tribution of high marsh peat (Spartina patens, a dwarf form of
Spartina alterniflora, and Distichlis spicata), which flourishes
at high water level, and the intertidal peat (Spartina alterni-
flora) extending from high water level to nearly two-thirds of
the tidal range.
The earliest stage reconstructed by Redfield was at 3,793
B.P. when sea level was –5.5 m below its present level. At that
time Sandy Neck was less than 2 km long (Fig. 36A). With the
extension of the spit and sediment accumulation behind it, the
marsh became more continuous in the enclosed basin (Fig.
36B). Further growth of the marsh (Fig. 36C–E) appears to
have been in the form of tongues that occupied positions where
sand flats had developed. As the vegetation on these flats grew,
the water in the enclosed basin was first separated into broad
sounds, and as the vegetation continued to grow, the sounds
became narrower to form the present creek systems. As the peat
built up to the present high water line, the vegetation stabilized
the channel meander pattern. Eastward growth rate of the spit
appears to have diminished since about 2,000 yr ago as a result
of a decrease in the rate of sea-level rise at that time. Redfield
(1965) postulated that the terminal hooks at the end of the spit
(Fig. 36D–F) developed during this period of slowly rising sea
level. As summarized by Redfield, the ontogeny of Barnstable
 Late Quaternary construction of Cape Cod, Massachusetts 39

Figure 31. Photograph of Provincetown Hook looking east with High Head sea cliffs in the back-
ground. Pilgrim Lake is on the left and on the upper right side is Wellfleet Harbor. To the left of
Pilgrim Lake are parabolic dunes whose beach grass cover was planted in an attempt to stabilize the
dunes. Photograph courtesy of D. S. Blackwood, U.S. Geological Survey, Woods Hole.

Figure 32. Photograph of Nauset Spit and marsh looking south. Photograph courtesy of D. S. Black-
wood, U.S. Geological Survey, Woods Hole.
40 E. Uchupi and Others

Figure 33. Photograph of Nauset Beach and North and South Monomoy Island and adjacent main-
land looking toward the south. At the time this photograph was taken in November 1980, the
Chatham Break at the position indicated by the arrow did not exist. Compare with Figure 52. Note
also the 1978 break in Monomoy Island. Photograph by A. G. Gaines, Jr., courtesy of the Informa-
tion Office, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution.

Figure 34. Photograph of drowned spring sapping valleys and kettle holes in Falmouth in the upper
Cape. Photograph courtesy of B. Howes, Biology Department, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution.
 Late Quaternary construction of Cape Cod, Massachusetts 41

Figure 35. Photograph of Oyster Pond at Falmouth in the upper Cape. This kettle lake is connected
to Vineyard Sound via a tidal inlet located in the left side of the photograph. Photograph courtesy of
B. Howes, Biology Department, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution.

Marsh is the result of the eastward growth of Sandy Neck dur-
ing the last 3,800 yr and the spread of the marsh in the basin
enclosed by the spit. As a result of higher sedimentation rates,
marsh expansion was much faster along the upland than along
the inward margin of the spit, and the marsh advanced basin-
ward in the form of broad tongues resting on sand flats. As the
marsh continued to grow, the sounds between the vegetation
tongues were transformed to today’s creeks and meandering
channels, features that change slowly only under existing tide
and sea-level conditions.
East shore, Provincetown Hook to Monomoy Island. At
6,000 B.P. when sea level was –10 m below its present level,
the east shore of the lower Cape was still dominated by the
32-km-long east-facing cliffs located 4 to 2.5 km east of their
present locations. At that time, the present site of Provincetown
Hook north of the cliffs was a marine embayment connecting
the western Gulf of Maine and Cape Cod Bay. The southeast
end of the Cape also was the site of a marine embayment, a low
that also may have been connected to Cape Cod Bay via Town
Cove. Georges Bank was finally submerged by 6,000 B.P. and
no longer inhibited waves from the east and southeast. As a
result of this drowning, northward littoral currents became
more pronounced and began the construction of Provincetown
Hook (Zeigler et al., 1965). From 6,000 to 1,000 yr ago the sea
cliffs in the lower Cape retreated distances of 1.5 km at
70°05′W, 2.0 km at 70°W, 2.4 km at 42°N, and 3.0 to 3.2 km
farther south at rates ranging from 0.3 m a–1 at the northern end
to 0.6 m a–1 at the southern end of the terrace. As the cliffs
retreated westward, they encountered the relict spring sapping
valleys. From 1887 to 1957–1958 this rate increased to
0.8 m a–1 (Zeigler et al., 1964b). The causes of this increase
have yet to be resolved, but the fact that relative sea-level rise
also accelerated during that period suggests that the accelera-
tion may be responsible for the increased erosion rate.
During the coastal retreat a wedge of glacial Cape Cod
with a thickness of 45 to 70 m on the seaward edge and 25 to
50 m on the landward edge, having an area of approximately
78.9 km2, was destroyed; a volume of 3.6 km3 (assuming an
average thickness 45 m above the erosional terrace) of detritus
was removed from the site and transported elsewhere. During
the last 1,000 yr when the cliffs retreated to their present posi-
tion, another 14.8 km2 were eroded from the lower Cape.
Assuming an average thickness of 30 m this equates to a volume
of 0.4 km3 for a total volume of 4.0 km3 for the last 6,000 yr.
This equates to sediment production of 666,667 m3 per year.
According to Zeigler et al. (1964a) (Table 1), the average yearly
volume today is 644,428 m3, of which 526,000 m3 (82%) was
available to nourish the beaches, bars, and spits. In our calcula-
tions this amounts to 546,667 m3, which converts to a volume
of 3.28 km3 for the last 6,000 yr. The segment of the Province-
town Hook above sea level has an area of 34.6 km2 and an aver-
age thickness of Holocene sediments of 20 m, for a volume of
0.7 km3. The segment of the hook below sea level has an area of
37.6 km2 and an average sediment thickness of about 60 m for
42 E. Uchupi and Others

Figure 36. Paleogeography of the Barnstable estuary and marsh. Modified from Redfield (1965).
Numbers at top right, A through F, indicate the age of the map and the mean high water level (in
meters) below present level at that time. Although Redfield assigned a date of 1950 A.D. to the map
in panel F, we have assigned a date of 1993 to this map on the assumption that the changes that have
occurred during the past 43 yr are beyond the resolution of the illustration.

a volume of 2.26 km3, or a total volume of the hook of about
2.96 km3. Zeigler et al. (1965, Table 3) calculated the volume
of the Provincetown Hook as 2.8 km3, a volume similar to that
determined in the present study. They also postulated that
0.08 km3 (a yearly production of 15,299 m3) of this sediment
originated from the Cape Cod Bay side of the Cape during the
last 6,000 yr, adding to Provincetown Hook. The remainder,
some 2.7 km3, came from erosion of the cliffs south of the
Provincetown Hook. This leaves about 0.45 km3 of sand for the
construction of the bars and beaches fronting the cliffs and
those south of the cliffs. Zeigler et al. (1965, Table 3) calculated
that the volumes of the beaches, nearshore and offshore bars is
0.004, 0.006, and 0.013 km3, respectively, for a combined vol-
ume of 0.024 km3, leaving 0.21 km3 for the construction of the
features farther south.
According to Zeigler et al. (1965), the volumes of the fea-
tures south of the cliffs were as follows: Nauset Spit, 0.007 km3;
Nauset Beach, 0.05 km3; Monomoy Island, above and below
sea level, 0.23 km3; Handkerchief Shoals, 0.14 km3; Great
Round Shoals, 0.25 km3; Stonehorse and Little Round Shoals,
0.28 km3; and Bearse Shoals, 0.07 km3, for a total of 1.01 km3.
The east-west orientation of the shoals and their isolation by
Pollack Rip and Great Round Channels where the glacial sedi-
ments (postglacial transgressive unconformity) are exposed
suggest that the sediments making up the Great Round, Stone-
horse, and Little Round Shoals were not derived from the north
(Fig. 37). Their grain size (1.0 to 0.250 mm on the lows
between the shoals and 0.250 to 0.0625 mm in the shoals them-
selves; Schlee, 1973, Plate 2E) also suggests that these sedi-
ments were probably derived from Nantucket Sound with
textural variations reflecting reworking by tidal currents.
O’Hara and Oldale (1987) have proposed that these post-
 Late Quaternary construction of Cape Cod, Massachusetts 43

Figure 37. Topography (dashed contours) and isopachs (heavy contours) of post-transgressive
Holocene sediments of the Monomoy Island region. Bathymetry from National Oceanographic and
Atmospheric Administration chart 13237 and isopach contours from O’Hara and Oldale (1987, Fig. 8).

transgressive Holocene sediments were likely derived from the
adjacent glacial drift. Their southwesterly trend is clear evi-
dence that both Monomoy Island and its southwest extension,
Handkerchief Shoal, were constructed from sediment derived
from the north and transported to their present position by
southerly littoral drift. If this is correct then only 0.28 km3 of
the sediments in the Monomoy region came from the cliffs to
the north and the rest of the detritus, 0.73 km3, used in the con-
struction of Great Round, Stonehorse, and Little Round Shoals,
was derived locally from erosion of the Pleistocene sediment
during the postglacial Holocene transgression. The shoals have
acquired their present east-west configuration subsequent to
their creation as a result of tidal current action. Zeigler et al.
(1965), who believed part of the detritus used to maintain the
southern spits came in part from erosion of the nearby sea floor,
estimated that this annual production was 184,974 km3, which
converts to 1.1 km3 for the last 6,000 yr. Our calculations sug-
gest, however, that this production may be much smaller and is
not essential for the maintenance of the spits as the cliffs to the
north are capable of providing nearly 74% of the material
needed (0.21 km3 of the 0.28 km3) to maintain the southerly
spits. If our estimates are correct, then 86% of the material
eroded from the cliffs is used in the construction of the
Provincetown Hook, 7.3% in the constructions of the beaches
and bars fronting the cliffs, and 6.7% in building the spits south
of the cliffs. By contrast, Zeigler et al. (1965) postulated that
roughly twice as much sand moved north along the lower Cape
as moved south (458,760 m3 vs. 229,380 m3).
An age of 6,000 yr for Provincetown Hook and other
coastal constructional features in the lower Cape is not unrea-
sonable. The oldest material closest to the base of the hook
(9.1 m above the platform) is 4,375 ± 400 B.P. and estimates
from the sand budget of the region indicate that the total loose
sand in the lower Cape accumulated during the past 5,321 yr
(Zeigler et al., 1965). The Provincetown Hook and the barrier
islands at the elbow of Cape Cod were constructed from sedi-
44 E. Uchupi and Others

ments derived from the sea cliffs and the nearshore bottom and
transported to their present depocenters by north- and south-
flowing littoral drift during the last 6,000 yr.
Fisher (1979b, 1987) undertook a short-term synoptic col-
lection of beach samples to attempt to locate the shoreline
nodal point where the littoral drift diverged to the north and
south, and the fulcrum point where erosion of the cliffs gives
way to deposition on Provincetown Hook. A previous study by
Schalk (1938), although collected at both high and low tide,
was spread over two seasons, and the detailed study by Zim-
merman (1963) was restricted to the region from Coast Guard
Beach to Nauset Inlet. A similar study was undertaken during
the present investigation where samples were collected both
along the foreshore and backshore. Fisher took his samples at
300-m intervals, Schalk at an interval of about 1 km, and our
samples are at a spacing ranging from about 3 to 5 km
(Fig. 38). All three studies show that the beach sands in front
of the cliffs display little textural variation but become coarser
to the north, with the grain size increasing from 0.30 to
0.40 mm at the southern end to 0.55 to 0.90 mm at the northern
end of the cliffs. Beach sands in the barrier spits south of the
cliffs to Monomoy Point are quite variable in texture ranging in
grain size from 0.65 to less than 0.3 mm. The sands in
Provincetown Hook are the coarsest and display a uniform
increase in median diameter from 0.55 to 0.90 mm at the east-
ern end to 1.5 to 2.3 mm at Long Point. Samples collected by
Schalk (1938) at low tide from Long Point to Pamet River are
coarser than those collected at high tide. Only the low tide sand
collected at Wood End Light depart from this trend being
slightly finer than the high tide sample at the same locality.
Samples collected during the present investigation also show
that the foreshore sands tend to be slightly coarser than those
from the backshore environment. Such textural variation is the
result of the energy level from the swash to the surf zone with
the highest being in the transition zone in the collision with the
outgoing swash and the incoming surf (Komar, 1976, p. 351).
Schalk (1938) reported that the finest grain size occurred
along the cliffs and that the median diameter increased both to
the north and south of the cliffs, a trend that Fisher (1987) sug-
gested may be due to the fact that the samples were collected at
different times. The samples collected by Fisher show that the
sands increase from medium to coarse northward along the
length of the cliffs, and that the sands in Provincetown Hook
increase from coarse to very coarse along the spit. The overall
trend along the east coast of the lower Cape is one of increasing
grain size from about Nauset Beach to Long Point (Fig. 38).
Thus, the grain size of the samples collected by Fisher north of
Nauset after the summer season of prevailing southerly winds
coarsen in the direction of sediment transport. The beach sands
from Nauset south display an irregular textural pattern down-
drift with no obvious change in grain size. That coarsening or
fining in the direction of net transport does not occur south of

Figure 38. Texture of beach sands along the lower Cape. Based on analyses by Schalk (1938, Fig. 2),
Fisher (1987, Figs. 6, 7), and the present investigation. The median diameters of the drift (D) in the
cliff, the beaches (B), nearshore bar (NB), and offshore bar (OF) also are indicated.
 Late Quaternary construction of Cape Cod, Massachusetts 45

Nauset may be the result of local contributions to the sediment

regime of the southern spits.
Komar (1976, p. 355) listed four ways by which long-shore
variations in grain size could be produced: (1) long-shore
changes in wave energy; (2) selective rates of transport, where
the fines are transported faster than the coarser grades; (3) win-
nowing of the fines from the beach, which are carried onshore
by winds or offshore by waves; and (4) the interplay of waves
from different directions. A fifth, and obvious, possibility
exists: long-shore variation in source grain size. Although grain
size does vary in the cliffs, it does not do so in a manner coher-
ent with beach sand textural variations. McCave (1978)
ascribed the increase in grain size in the direction of net trans-
port in northern East Anglia in eastern England to the winnow-
ing out of the finer fraction and its dispersal offshore by tidal
currents, leaving a progressive coarser lag on the beach down-
drift. He also suggested that in regions lacking strong tidal cur-
rents these fines could be reintroduced to the beach downdrift,
leading to a fining trend downcurrent. Coarsening of the sands
downcurrent along the lower Cape may be the result of a varia-
tion of the third mechanism proposed by Komar (1976) and the
mechanism proposed by McCave (1978) for East Anglia.
Grain-size analyses of the beaches and bars fronting the cliffs,
the sediment source area, indicate that the coarsest sands,
including gravel, accumulate in the beach and nearshore bar
with the finer grades winnowed out by wave action to be
deposited in the offshore bar. The beach and nearshore bar
sands and gravel are subsequently transported laterally by the
wave-driven longshore drift, eventually coming to rest in the
distal end of Provincetown Hook. The finer, offshore sands are
carried laterally to the south by net southward-directed long-
shore currents during stormy periods when they are put into
suspension by breaking waves. Figure 39. Evolution of the Provincetown Hook according to Davis
Three models have been proposed for construction of (1896) (A) and Zeigler et al. (1965) (B). Adapted from Leatherman
Provincetown Hook. Davis (1896) proposed that the first sand (1987, Figs. 4, 6).
spit began to build northwest of the glacial headland 4,000 yr
ago. As the spits grew northwestward, they tended to curve and
fuse at their ends, cutting off areas of water (Fig. 39A). Prov- increased only the width of the Provincetown Hook. In the
incetown Hook built in this manner would tend to be quite nar- modified Davis model proposed by Messinger (1958), the
row at the point where it is attached to the glacial highland and peninsula formed around a preexisting island or landmass off
subject to inlet breaching as is Sandy Hook in New Jersey. In the tip of Cape Cod. Leatherman (1987) rejected the Messinger
the Davis model the fulcrum of the spit shifted position as the model, pointing out that drilling by Zeigler et al. (1965) had
glacial cliffs retreated southeastward. This shift was ascribed by failed to yield evidence of such a high, and that the oscillations
him to the construction of a new tangential spit northward and in sea level needed to build the beach-dune ridges in this model
seaward of the previous one. As described by Leatherman were not supported by the sea-level curve of Redfield and
(1987), the Davis model is based on the premise that (1) the Rubin (1962).
present-day curving dune ridges delineate the shoreline at dif- In a third model proposed by Zeigler et al. (1965), which is
ferent stages in the development of the hook and that the swales based on boreholes drilled in the hook and 14C dating of strata
between the ridges represent areas of salt water that were cut encountered during the drilling, the spits making up the
off by the prograding sand spits; (2) the hook was built from Provincetown terrain were built sequentially, with each one
east to west over the length of the Provincetown lowland before being built a short distance to the west and then hooking
it was cut by the next spit being formed to its north; (3) the abruptly to the south (Fig. 39B). In the model of Zeigler et al.
length of the hook was established with the formation of the (1965), the width of the hook also was established early in its
first spit; and (4) subsequent spits constructed to the north history and its length increased slowly westward with time as a
46 E. Uchupi and Others
new spit was added to the feature. Zeigler et al. (1965) also
believed that as a result of a slowing down in the rate of sea-
level rise 2,000 yr ago, construction shifted from a pattern of
tight hooks to deposition along the length of Provincetown
Hook. Except for the recent sand ridges enclosing Hatches Har-
bor, the dune ridges also bear no relationship to the locations of
the older shorelines in the model of Zeigler et al. (1965).
To test the validity of the two models, Leatherman (1979f,
1987) took 41 cores in four swales in the Provincetown Hook to
determine the stratigraphy of the lows. If the cores encountered
plant remains and sediments of marine origin in the subsurface,
which give way up section to a continental sequence as the area
becomes more continental in origin, it would support Davis’s
contention that the dune-ridge system delineates the location of
a former shoreline. Similarly, the sediments on the swales on
either side of a dune-ridge should have different ages for this
concept to be correct. The core samples do not appear to sup-
port the Davis model. For example, no salt-marsh deposits were
penetrated by any of the cores that yielded only a thin surface
organic layer resting on an eolian deposit. Only at Race Run
were marine sediments encountered beneath cranberry bogs. At
three coring sites compacted peat deposits were encountered
beneath eolian sands, which Leatherman (1979f, 1987) believed
represented a mixed-shrub swamp similar to swamps found
today in many areas of the Provincetown Hook. He further
stated that, although the coring is not conclusive (only the
upper 3 m of the 60-m section of Provincetown Hook were
sampled), the orientation and characteristics of the relict fresh-
water marshes can best be explained by the model of Zeigler et
al. (1965) rather than by the Davis model. The location of sim-
ilar peat deposits in different swales rather than the same one,
and the occurrence of marine coarse sand and pebbles 1 m
below the surface in what according to Davis was supposed to
be an old swale, also tend to question the validity of his model.
All in all, the stratigraphy displayed by the cores taken in this
complex geologic region of constant shifting dunes (even the
stabilized dunes have been active in the recent past) is more
compatible with the model of Zeigler et al. (1965).
The various stages of retreat of the sea cliffs along the east
side of the lower Cape and the development of Provincetown
Hook are displayed in Figure 40, a history of continuous retreat
of seaward-facing cliffs and the formation of sediment accumu-
lations north and south of the retreating cliffs. About 9,500 yr
ago, when sea level was 30 m lower, the lower Cape was dom-
inated by an eastward-facing cliff extending from the High
Head sea cliffs to Nauset (Fig. 40A). At the northern and south-
ern ends of the cliffs at the present locations of Provincetown
Hook and Nauset Marsh were two marine embayments. As the
cliffs retreated westward and sea level rose to about –10 m
6,000 yr ago, the embayment south of the cliffs was filled with
detritus eroded from the cliffs to the north and from material
derived from the outwash plains surrounding the embayment.
As the sediments prograded eastward, the southern tip of the
cliffs in Nauset Marsh was slowly isolated from further marine
erosion. Sediment transport to the north then was nonexistent
because the crest of Georges Bank rose above sea level up to
6,000 yr ago, inhibiting littoral drift in that direction. As the
southern embayment became filled with sediment, the shore-
line prograded eastward to or near the position of the shoreline
along the seaward edge of the wave-cut terrace north of the
embayment. We speculate that a barrier or system of barriers of
unknown geometry was formed along the eastern edge of this
filled low, constructional features that retreated westward,
keeping pace with the rising sea (Fig. 40B). With the develop-
ment of these barriers and marshes on their landward sides the
cliffs defining the glacial terrains were protected from further
erosion. By 6,000 yr ago, as Georges Bank drowned, sediment
transport to the north began and construction of Provincetown
Hook was initiated. Its subsequent buildup from 5,000 yr ago to
the present is displayed in Figure 40, C–F. As Provincetown
Hook grew, the cliffs at High Head, like those inboard of the
spits at the Cape’s elbow, became protected from further marine
erosion. During the last 2,000 yr Provincetown Hook has grown
1,800 m to the northeast at Race Point and some 600 m to the
east of Pilgrim Lake (Zeigler et al., 1965), and in the last 70 yr,
coastal accretion at the Race Point–Pilgrim Lake area has aver-
aged 0.7 m a–1 (Zeigler et al., 1965).
Geodynamics and historical changes. Although large
expanses of the western Gulf of Maine east of Cape Cod Bay
and the east coast shelf south of Martha’s Vineyard and Nan-
tucket Island have not changed appreciably since they were
inundated during the Holocene transgression, other segments of
the Cape Cod region are in state of continuous metamorphosis
(Fig. 41). Some of these transformations are slow, occurring
within a framework measured in centuries to a millennium;
others occur daily and are related to the tidal regime of the
regions; and finally, features form at time intervals of less than
a day to decades (see Aubrey and Giese, 1993, and references
therein). Tidal current–generated terrains are short-lived geo-
logically as they are in a continuous state of change in response
to daily tidal cycles. Examples of such terrains are ebb-tidal and
flood-tidal deltas and midestuary sand bodies as occur in the
Chatham Harbor estuary (Hine, 1972), the features off the tip of
Cape Cod and Stellwagen Bank, Nantucket Shoals, the shoals
in Nantucket Sound, and Middle Ground in Vineyard Sound.
The ebb-tidal delta, a multifacies asymmetrical body seaward
of a tidal inlet, consists of sediment transported to the site sea-
ward of tidal inlets; the flood-tidal delta landward of inlets is
composed of flood spillover and complexes; and midestuary
sand bodies are constructed of reworked flood-tidal deltas
sequences (Fig. 41, B–C). Areas of strong gradients in tidal cur-
rents on Stellwagen Bank and around the tip of Cape Cod
where the bottom sediments are intensively reworked by tidal
currents also are areas where Right Whales are generally
encountered (Blumberg et al., 1993; Hamilton and Mayo,
1988). Middle Ground, a sand ridge in Vineyard Sound, is a spit
formed from sand eroded from Lucas Shoal during the
Holocene transgression (Fig. 42A) (Smith, 1969). A six-day
 Late Quaternary construction of Cape Cod, Massachusetts 47

Figure 40. Paleogeographic maps of the lower Cape showing the successive positions of the shoreline
9,500 (A), 6,000 (B), 5,000 (C), 3,700 (D), 2,000 (E) B.P., and today (F). Compiled from Zeigler et al.
(1965, Figs. 5, 6, 8) and other sources discussed in the text. Sea level is relative to the present level.

series of photographs taken with a time-lapse camera in Middle
Ground quite clearly shows movement of the sand on the bot-
tom due to the alternating currents (Owen et al., 1967). Some of
this sand leaves the system at the northern end of the shoal at
West Chop, but much of it is recirculated by the tidal currents
down the northern side of the high. This counterclockwise sed-
iment transport around Middle Ground has been supported by
more recent work by Briggs (1979). The most extensive of
these tidal current–generated terrains is Nantucket Shoals,
dominated by its shallow northeast-trending sand ridges
aligned parallel to the tidal currents. During the flood and ebb
tides the crests of the sand ridges are reworked by the currents
and the finer fraction is continuously winnowed from the highs.
Once suspended, they become entrained in the water column (a
48 E. Uchupi and Others

Figure 41. Morphology of the recurved spit complex (A), ebb-tidal delta (B), and flood-tidal delta-
ebb spillover lobe complex in the inlet between Monomoy Island and Nauset Spit (C). Compiled
from Hine (1972, Figs. 2, 24, 49, 51). Maps are at different scales so as not to lose detail.

mixture of Gulf of Maine and Nantucket Sound waters) that
leaves the region via Great South Channel. Here this water and
its suspended load mixes with shelfwater and joins the general
westward flow over the mid- and outer east coast shelf (Lime-
burner and Beardsley, 1982). During this westward transport
the fines winnowed from the Nantucket Shoals ridges tend to
deposit in the mud patch south of Martha’s Vineyard. Some of
the material winnowed from Nantucket Shoals never leaves the
region of the shoals but spills over their eastern edge to accu-
mulate on Fan A.
Features formed at intervals of hours to years are usually
constructed by littoral drift generated by waves or residual tidal
 Late Quaternary construction of Cape Cod, Massachusetts 49

Figure 42. A, Chart showing locations of Lucas Shoal and Middle Ground, a sand spit. B, Changes
in the position of the crest of Middle Ground Shoal with time. Positions of the crest of the shoal are
based on National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration smooth sheets and aerial photo-
graphs. Compiled from Smith (1969, Figs. 2, 8).

currents. Some of these terrains form slowly, with their devel-
opment best documented by surveys repeated over periods of
years. Other features, however, develop in a matter of hours as
a result of some catastrophic event, generally an intense storm.
Some of the wave-generated terrains are short-lived, having
been formed during a tidal cycle that will be modified to some
degree during the next tidal cycle (Fig. 43). Another example
of a more lasting type of terrain is the migration of the shoals
due to residual tidal currents. A comparison of topographic sur-
veys made in 1886, 1906, and 1962 shows that the crest of Mid-
dle Ground has bent with time (Fig. 42B). Surveys of Middle
Ground made by Briggs (1979) in March, June, August, and
November 1978 also indicated not only that the whole shoal
has shifted, but that the sand waves in the ebb-dominated south-
ern flank migrated to the northeast. Other sand waves, instead
of migrating, tend to flex their crests like the shoal itself, flex-
ures that reverse themselves during the tidal cycle. Some of
these changes appear to be seasonal and are the result of wave
action that is more intense in the winter months. According to
Briggs (1979), the yearly average rates of the migrations caused
by residual tidal currents ranged from nearly zero to about
40 m a–1. In Nantucket Sound two of the sand shoals them-
selves may have migrated from their original position and come
to rest over a marsh deposit and Holocene marine sediments
more than 10,000 yr old.
Other examples of long-term change in terrain morphology
can be seen in the lower Cape. Comparison of topographic
maps of Wellfleet Harbor from 1887, 1933, and 1958, for
example, show the disappearance of Billingsgate Island, which
submerged in 1942, and the evolution of the spit along the sea-
ward side of the harbor, an evolution marked by erosion when
the spit was cut in two, and subsequent growth to its present
shape (Fig. 44). Destruction of the island was in part due to
dwindling of southerly transport as a result of the development
of Provincetown Hook. Similar surveys of Pamet River show
the artificial cut made in the spit and its northern growth with
time (Fig. 45). In the early 19th century, Pamet Harbor was a
shipbuilding and fishing port. According to Fisher (1979a), a
lighthouse was erected at the entrance of the harbor in 1879 but
was discontinued 6 yr later when the harbor silted up. Pamet
River is separated from the open ocean at its eastern end by the
Ballston Beach–dune complex (Fig. 46). This beach-dune sys-
tem has been overwashed several times during severe northeast
storms (1972, 1978, and 1992).
Analyses of historical maps also show the changes that
have taken place along the western side of Pilgrim Lake, for-
merly East Harbor (Fig. 47). Comparison of surveys made in
1833–1835 with those of 1867 shows the changes in the con-
figuration of the spit along the seaward side of the harbor. This
barrier, formed by littoral drift to the northeast, was enhanced
with the development of Provincetown Hook, and was later
artificially extended northward in 1869 to connect it with the
50 E. Uchupi and Others

Figure 43. Wave-generated sand bodies in Cape Cod Bay exposed during low tide. The view is look-
ing south with the Boat Meadow River in the foreground and the entrance to Rock Harbor in the
background. These features are transitory and will change shape during the next high tide.

hook (Mayflower Heights) and stabilized with the planting of

beach grass. The connection later was further strengthened with
fill to provide a causeway, first for a railroad to Provincetown
and more recently for two highways (Leatherman, 1979b;
Giese and Leatherman, 1979). With its closure, the former har-
bor, now a lake, became progressively less salty with time.
Similar changes also have been noted in the periphery of
Provincetown Hook, with its eastern side undergoing retreat
and its western side accreting (Fig. 48). The entrance to
Hatches Harbor at the western tip of Provincetown Hook also
has undergone noticeable changes during the last century. Dur-
ing this time the harbor has been almost closed by the growth of
the recurring spits, and only a narrow inlet has survived to pro-
vide a passageway to the open ocean (Fig. 48) (Hamilton, 1978;
Leatherman, 1979c; Hamilton and Leatherman, 1979). Hamil-
ton (1978) reported that from 1841 to 1887 the harbor was 4.4
km long and 1.2 km wide, with numerous islands rising above
high tide, and was probably about 2.8 m deep. By 1910, infill-
ing had reduced the depth of the harbor to less than 1 m, but its
inlet deepened and broadened with time, reaching a width of
0.36 km in 1944. Since then the inlet has again decreased in
width to 0.1 km, migrated southward, but at the same time
maintained its offset shape. In time, this low will be infilled
with sediment to become one of the interdunal lows character-
istic of the Provincetown Hook, with a small tidal inlet con-
necting the marshy area with the open sea. Figure 44. Shoreline maps of Wellfleet Harbor showing historical
Changes in dune and bog and pond morphology in changes of the spit and Billingsgate Island along the west side of the
Provincetown Hook appear to be the result of climatic changes Harbor. Based on charts from U.S. Coast and Geodetic Survey.
and human activity. Modern wetlands were initiated about
 Late Quaternary construction of Cape Cod, Massachusetts 51

Figure 45. Shoreline maps of the Pamet River showing historical changes at the western end of the
Pamet River. Artificial refers to manmade features such as dikes, culverts, and fill. Based on charts
from U.S. Coast and Geodetic Survey.

Figure 46. Panoramic view of the eastern end of Pamet River Valley. Ballston Beach separating the
valley from the open ocean has been overwashed a number of times during storms, with the gap pro-
duced providing a temporary connection between the valley and the sea. These photographs were
taken in December 1992 by G. S. Giese, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, after the latest over-
wash that occurred in October 1992, documenting that within several months after it was eroded, the
breach had already been healed.
52 E. Uchupi and Others

Figure 47. U.S. Coast and Geodetic Survey maps of East Harbor (present Pilgrim Lake) showing
historical changes of the region. The barrier separating the lake from the open ocean is artificial fill
and was constructed in 1869.

1,000 yr ago in the central and southwestern part of the hook
within an earlier dune field. Winkler (1992) suggested this wet
episode was due to a combination of factors, which include a
slowing down of sea-level rise, a slight change in the direction
of the prevailing wind, an increase in precipitation that led to an
increase in the vegetation cover and subsequent stabilization of
the dunes, and/or a slowing down of sand-laden winds. Peat-
lands also developed within the present active dune field from
700 to 500 yr ago as a result of increased precipitation and
decreased wind activity. As a result of more intense, colder and
drier winds, dune activity was renewed during the Little Ice
Age from 500 to 100 yr ago, an activity that was accentuated by
the arrival of European settlers to the region who denuded the
dunes for fuel and agricultural purposes. The eolian activity in
the region again diminished during the last century as a result
of a change to a wetter, warmer, less windy climate that favored
the development of wetlands and the stabilization of the dunes
by revegetation through human efforts. Modifications on the
western side of the lower Cape are not limited to changes in the
configuration of Holocene constructional features, however, but
also to changes in the configuration of the glacial terrain. Like
the cliffs on the glacial deposits on the Atlantic side, those on
the Cape Cod Bay side also are retreating, but at a much slower
rate of 0.3 m a–1 (Giese, 1964; Leatherman, 1979a).
From August 1887 through 1889, Marindin (1889, 1891)
surveyed 229 points along most of the east coast of the lower
Cape including Provincetown Hook. Reoccupation of 74 of
those points in 1958 and 1959 (Zeigler et al., 1964b) demon-
 Late Quaternary construction of Cape Cod, Massachusetts
Figure 48. Historical changes in Hatches Harbor. From Hamilton (1978, Figs. 5 through 7).
strated that the Provincetown Hook from Race Point to Pilgrim
Lake is accreting at a rate of 0.70 m a–1, and that the cliffs from
south of Pilgrim Lake to Nauset are retreating at a rate of
0.8 m a–1. Comparison of aerial photographs taken in 1938,
1952, 1971, and 1974 (Fig. 49) of the coast of the lower Cape
from Long Point to Monomoy Point indicates that the greatest
changes of the high water line were at the northern and south-
ern ends of the coast (Gatto, 1979). At the north end net
changes varied from –3 m (erosion) to +97.9 m (accretion) and
at the southern end from –18.9 to –547.3 m; net changes in the
central segment ranged from –2.1 to –48.2 m. These and simi-
lar historical records suggest that the cliff is retreating at a rate
of about 0.8 m a–1; this, together with the supposition that sea
level has been near its present level since about 3,500 yr ago,
have been used to determine the shape of glacial lower Cape.
Fisher (1972) estimated that the shoreline extended 3.7 km off-
shore, Shaler (1897) calculated that it was no less than about
1 km and no more than 7.2 km, and Davis (1896) thought that it
was about 4 km. Our estimates, based on seismic reflection data
seaward of the lower Cape, indicate that the glacial lower Cape
extended 2.8 to 7.0 km east of the present shore. Cliff retreat
from this position to its present one probably was not at a uni-
form rate, but was marked by periodic catastrophic failures
53
such as the one that occurred in 1848 when more than 18 m of
land disappeared from in front of the Highland Light, and in
1978 when another 5.5 m broke off (Fisher and Leatherman,
1979). Assuming an average rate of cliff retreat of 0.8 m a–1,
the lower Cape—which ranges in width from 2.4 km in the
north, 7.0 km in the center, and 5.0 km in the south—should be
eroded by 3,000 years at its north end, 8,800 yr in its center,
and 6,200 yr at its southern end. Once the lower Cape is
destroyed, the upper Cape will soon follow and the former posi-
tion of the Cape and environs will be marked by an extensive
sand plain and shoals and scattered patches of lag gravel.
The elbow of Cape Cod with its spits and extensive
marshes also has undergone noticeable changes in historical
times. Nauset Beach, which dominates the region, for example,
is slowly being displaced landward by tidal dynamics and over-
wash processes (Leatherman, 1979d, 1979e). A map compiled
by Captain Cypian Southhack in 1717 showing the location
where the 30.5-m brigantine Whidah sank April 26, 1717, dis-
plays a navigable channel at the Cape’s elbow connecting Cape
Cod Bay and the Atlantic, an area occupied by marshes today.
This path probably represents remnants of the gap along which
Cape Cod Bay Glacial Lake drained into the Atlantic toward
the end of the Wisconsin. Although the passage may have been
54 E. Uchupi and Others

Figure 49. A, Net annual rate of change in the high water line on the lower Cape from Long Point to
Monomoy Point. B, Locations of reference points in A. Modified from Gatto (1979, Figs. 1, 4).

navigable at high water, the present distribution of the glacial
deposits in the region indicates that the waterway was much
narrower and more irregular than indicated on the Southhack
map. Changes in the morphology of Nauset Inlet breaching
Nauset Spit are documented by historical charts as old as 1605.
A chart drawn by Champlain in 1605 (Ganong, 1922) shows
the southern spit at that time as being located 0.8 km seaward
of its 1978 location, suggesting that from 1605 to 1948 the spit
retreated at a rate of 2.1 m a–1 (Wright and Brenninkmeyer,
1979). Analyses of historical charts and photographs by Aubrey
and Speer (1984) indicate that Nauset Inlet has migrated exten-
sively during the last 30 yr with its preferred location being just
north of Nauset Heights. Prior to 1944, the south spit does not
appear to have been significant, and from the 1950s to early
1980s the inlet displays three cycles of northerly drift with the
north spit being stable and the southern one growing northward
(Fig. 50). Many of the changes documented by the charts were
storm induced when the northern spit was breached to form a
new inlet. Studies by Wright and Brenninkmeyer (1979) from
June 1975 to June 1976 indicate that after the northern spit is
breached during a storm the spit remnant south of the breach
develops into a flood-tidal delta. According to Aubrey and
Speer (1984), three mechanisms caused this updrift migration
of the tidal inlet: (1) attachment of distal ebb tide delta bars to
the downdrift spit; (2) storm-produced breaching of the spit fol-
lowed by stabilization; and (3) channel discharge producing a
three-dimensional flow regime leading to erosion on the outer
channel bank and deposition on the inner channel bank (as in
stream meanders).
Analyses of historical charts show similar changes in Nauset
 Late Quaternary construction of Cape Cod, Massachusetts 55

Figure 50. Historical charts showing the migration of the Nauset Inlet with time. Compiled from
Wright and Brenninkmeyer (1979, Fig. 1) and Aubrey and Speer (1984, Figs. 4, 6, 7). In the 1605
chart, the ∗ marks the location of Nauset Heights and the letter H is a segment of upland terrain that
Ganong (1922) interpreted as a small drumlin.

Beach in front of the Chatham Lighthouse and Monomoy
Island (Fig. 51). Nauset Beach and Monomoy Island are two
barriers with tidal flow between Chatham Harbor–Pleasant Bay
Estuary taking place through South Inlet located south of Nau-
set Beach. Comparison of maps from 1887, 1940, 1947–1953,
1961–1964, with stereoscopic photographs taken in 1969 indi-
cated that the northern end of Monomoy Island (Shooters
Island) has been receding since 1948 and that it could have sep-
arated from the rest of the island in about 70 or 80 yr (Oldale et
al., 1971). The break, however, took place in 1978, earlier than
anticipated by Oldale et al. (1971). The southern half of
Monomoy has been prograding eastward at a rate of about
12 m a–1 since at least 1853. Growth of Monomoy will proba-
bly slow down in the future as the island progrades into Butler
Hole to the southeast and a smaller depression southwest of the
island. As Nauset Beach propagates southward, Monomoy
Island tends to separate from Morris Island, leading to the cre-
ation of a new tidal inlet, West Inlet, north of Monomoy. As
Nauset Beach continues to grow southward, a new inlet is
breached in the spit with the segment south of the breach
migrating onshore to fill in the old tidal channel. In time, this
migrating sand seals the opening north of Monomoy connect-
ing the island to the mainland again (Friedrichs et al., 1993).
Such a breaching of Nauset Beach occurred during an intense
northeast storm on January 2, 1987 (Fig. 52). As a result,
houses immediately to the west of the ever-widening breach,
which are no longer protected by the spit, have incurred and
continue to incur intense damage during storms.
Inlet creations, inlet displacements, westward retreat of the
barrier islands, and southerly spit extensions at the Cape’s
elbow are documented by charts going as far back as the early
17th century. McClennen (1979) believed that these changes
are cyclical, that they occur every 100 yr and that cyclicity cor-
responds to a period when water levels in Pleasant Bay differ
from those in the Atlantic by 1 m. More recently, Friedrichs et
al. (1993) constructed a branched one-dimensional numerical
56 E. Uchupi and Others

Figure 51. Historical changes in the Nauset Beach–Monomoy Island barrier system. Compiled from
Giese (1988, Fig. 2) and Friedrichs et al. (1993, Fig. 2). SP = Strong Point; CBI = Chatham Bars Inlet.

model to attempt to determine why the barriers and estuaries
exhibit a long-term cycle of inlet formation that Giese (1988)
postulated to be about 150 yr, and why once an inlet is formed
the resulting multiple inlet system is unstable. On the assump-
tion that these episodic changes in the spit will continue into
the future, Giese made some predictions for the periods
1975–1985, 1985–1995, and 1995–2005 for the Chatham Con-
servation Commission in 1978. He predicted that a new breach
would form on the spit sometime during the 1985–1995 decade
and that the breach would occur east of North Chatham; the
break, which occurred in 1987, took place 3.9 km south of his
predicted location. Friedrichs et al. (1993) also proposed that a
new inlet would be formed in Nauset Beach when the elonga-
tion of the spit led to the creation of a critical hydraulic head
across the barrier as previously suggested by McClennen
(1979). If the critical head, enhanced by storm surges and wave
set-up, occurred at the time of high tide during consecutive tidal
cycles, then the storm currents and waves would tend to deepen
the overwash channel, allowing the stronger ebb currents to
complete the formation of the inlet. With the creation of this
new inlet, tidal discharge through the older one will be dimin-
ished and it will become a site of deposition. As the region of
the lower inlet shoals, the northern and southern sections of the
Chatham Estuary will become hydrodynamically decoupled.
As the spit begins to grow southward again, ultimately it will
reach a critical length, building the required hydraulic head in
the estuary, and will initiate a new cycle of spit breaching.
An example at the slow end of the geologic time scale
where changes in the Cape region are imperceptible over short
time periods and occur in centuries to millennia is Cape Cod
Bay (Fig. 53). This body of water within the bent arm of Cape
Cod has acted as a sediment sink for sediments from the north
throughout much of the Holocene. Neither Cape Cod Bay nor
Massachusetts Bay to the north has a sizable river discharging
directly into it, but discharge from the Merrimack River and
other Gulf of Maine rivers north of Cape Ann generate a buoy-
ancy-driven southerly flowing coastal current that transports
sediments from those rivers to Cape Cod Bay. This flow is part
of a counterclockwise circulation in the region made up of
southerly inflow south of Cape Ann, southerly flow off Scitu-
ate, and northeasterly flow north of Race Point (Bigelow, 1927;
Bumpus and Lauzier, 1965; Brooks, 1985; Blumberg et al.,
1993). According to Geyer (1992), this residual flow pattern
reverses in the fall. Most of the material in suspension in these
coastal waters tends to bypass Massachusetts Bay and accumu-
lates in Cape Cod Bay accounting for its smooth topography
relative to the rougher terrain in much of Massachusetts Bay
(Fig. 54). Some of the sediment does leave Cape Cod Bay north
 Late Quaternary construction of Cape Cod, Massachusetts
A 1980
B 1991
Figure 52. Photographs of the Chatham Break that took place on Jan-
uary 2, 1987. Photograph A is from the site taken in 1980 prior to the
break. Photograph B was taken in the summer of 1991 at low tide
when the breach was nearly 2 km wide. Note flood-tidal delta block-
ing the former south tidal inlet. Photograph A courtesy of A. G.
Gaines, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution; photograph B cour-
tesy of D. S. Blackwood, U.S. Geological Survey, Woods Hole.
of Race Point. Once the sediment escapes the confines of the
coastal bays, it is transported southward by the Gulf of Maine
water; as it is transported southward, the sediments accumulate
in the western Gulf of Maine and beyond.
Historical changes in Cape Cod are not limited to natural
events but are the result of human activities. On a more global
scale, Hooke (1994) reviewed some of the impacts of humans
as geomorphic agents. Many of these impacts occur on Cape
Cod. Included among these activities are devegetation of the
dunes of Provincetown Hook by off-road vehicles (Leather-
man, 1979g) and mining sand for more than 50 yr in the
Provincetown Hook (Leatherman and Godfrey, 1979), practices
no longer allowed. Timber harvesting, clearing of land for agri-
culture, and unrestricted grazing from the colonial period to the
57
recent past are other practices that have severely altered Cape
Cod’s ecosystem (McCaffrey and Leatherman, 1979). This
misuse of the land led to an increase in eolian activity and the
shoaling of Provincetown Harbor by the deposition of sand.
Such deposition in East Harbor in the middle of the 19th cen-
tury made it too shallow for continued use as a harbor of refuge
(Leatherman, 1988, p. 96). Removal of the vegetation cover
may also have led to the erosion of a channel during Minot’s
Gale in 1851 connecting East Harbor to the Atlantic via the Salt
Meadow at the foot of the High Head cliffs (Leatherman, 1988,
p. 96–97). This breach, which some thought threatened to
destroy Provincetown Harbor, led to the closing of East Harbor
and the creation of Pilgrim Lake and the planting of beach
grass to heal the breach. Building of the dike has led to other
problems, including the formation of a highly eutrophic lake
unsuitable for recreation. Leakage from the tidal gate control-
ling the outflow of the water from the lake led to saltwater
influx and a fish kill in 1972. This in turn led to a massive
increase in the midge fly population, which threatened the
tourist industry. To prevent similar problems in the future, the
tidal gate was improved (Leatherman, 1988, p. 97). Another
human-made feature that has affected the ecosystem of Cape
Cod is the Cape Cod Canal, 32 km long, 146 to 231 m wide,
and about 10 m deep. This artificial feature, completed in 1936,
affected the littoral drift in Cape Cod Bay (accelerating erosion
south of its eastern entrance) and led to an eco-linkage between
Buzzards Bay and Cape Cod Bay.
The west side of Cape Cod (Buzzards Bay) has been mod-
ified by a variety of human activities as well as natural erosive
processes. Among the major changes to the west side of Cape
Cod are the construction of numerous harbors along the coast
(Phinney’s Harbor, Pocasset Harbor, Red Brook Harbor,
Squeteague Harbor, Megansett Harbor, West Falmouth Harbor,
and Quissett Harbor: Fig. 2). These harbors are located in reen-
trants to the morainal topography of western Cape Cod, alter-
ing freshwater exchange with the bay. In one instance (West
Falmouth Harbor), a natural entrance was closed to maintain a
strong tidal flow in the remaining entrance. The stronger flow
was desired to maintain a self-sustaining navigation channel to
permit passage of pleasure craft. The other changes include
dredging of entrance channels and mooring areas, and con-
struction of harbor facilities along the shoreline. Although
beach erosion along this section of Cape Cod is less than the
more exposed Atlantic shore of Cape Cod, it is still significant,
particularly along the many headlands. Protection of these
headlands by hard engineering structures has reduced the sedi-
ment supply to adjacent beaches. An example is the armoring
of Gunning Point and Hamlin Point by large rock revetments,
cutting off sediment supply and turning Flume Pond into a
retreating and thinning cobble beach instead of its more natural
sandy texture.
The south shore of Cape Cod has experienced significant
changes in time, partly due to human influence and partly to
58 E. Uchupi and Others

natural forces. The tides in Nantucket Sound are relatively
small (range of about 30 to 75 cm) compared to the Buzzards
Bay shore (range of about 1 to 1.5 m), the Cape Cod Bay shore
(about 3-m range), or the open Atlantic (nearly 2-m tidal range).
Also, the waves are the smallest among the ocean shores of
Cape Cod, all the waves being locally generated because of
complete encirclement by shallow water which precludes free
passage of open ocean waves (e.g., Goud and Aubrey, 1985).
This combination of small tidal range and low wave activity
makes the south shore of Cape Cod relatively calm compared to
the other Cape Cod shores. However, changes have taken place
along this shore, particularly in the barrier beaches. One exam-

Figure 53. Holocene sedimentary domains of Cape Cod.

 Late Quaternary construction of Cape Cod, Massachusetts
Figure 54. Computer-generated relief diagram of Cape Cod Bay and
vicinity. Figure courtesy of R. P. Signell, U.S. Geological Survey,
Woods Hole. Note smoothness of the sea floor of Cape Cod relative to
Massachusetts Bay to the north. Lack of relief in Cape Cod Bay is the
result of faster rates of sedimentation to the south. Note 100× vertical
exaggeration.
ple is Popponesset barrier beach in Mashpee, which has experi-
enced a cycle of elongation, shortening, and elongation in
response to tidal inlet formation. Although much less dynamic
than the Chatham situation, the Popponesset breach is a signif-
icant one for local water quality (Aubrey and Gaines, 1982).
The historical evolution shows a lengthening barrier beach
from about 1844 to 1954, when a series of hurricanes breached
the elongated barrier about halfway along its length. This
breach became the preferred inlet location, separating the
northern island segment from the shore-attached southern seg-
ment. The north spit eventually migrated onshore, filling in the
former inlet channel, disappearing completely as it fully filled
the old channel.
Another significant modification of the southern Cape Cod
shoreline arose from navigation and harbor projects. Nearly
two dozen significant harbors are scattered along the coast of
southern Cape Cod. Most are protected by double jetties to
minimize shoaling at the entrances and simplify boat passage.
These jetties have altered the natural flow of sediment transport
along the coast, causing accretion on updrift sides of the inlets
59
and massive erosion on downdrift sides of the inlets. The satel-
lite image of Cape Cod (Fig. 55) demonstrates these large inlet
offsets, a dominant feature of the south shore of the Cape. The
altered sediment budget has led to significant erosional prob-
lems, encouraging the use of revetments and seawalls to protect
threatened structures. These hard engineering solutions have
further reduced the sediment supply to the south Cape, such
that this region is sediment starved at present. Although three
beach nourishment programs have been conducted in south
Cape Cod in recent years to help retard the erosion of the Cape,
there is still insufficient erodible sand to reproduce the wide
sandy beaches of this region in previous years.
Probably the most pronounced impact on the fragile Cape
has been the marked increase in the summer population, par-
ticularly during the last four decades. This summer population
explosion, in turn, has led to a boom in various types of ser-
vices from hotels, restaurants, and recreation facilities. There
also has been a major increase in year-round population as
more people see the Cape as an ideal place to live and retire,
and with this has come an increase in housing and expansion
in public services that such an increase entails (Fig. 56). As
communications with Boston improve, this year-round popula-
tion will certainly increase as more people leave the city to live
in the Cape’s more hospitable environment. With them also
will come many problems they believe they are leaving behind.
With the increase in land use has come all its shortcomings:
increase in waste products and the problem of what to do with
them, contamination of the environment including the ground-
water (the only source of drinking water for the Cape),
attempts to engineer the environment to maximize its recre-
ational potential, and the demand for instant gratification with
little interest for the future consequences of such actions. It is
the human condition to accept solutions that cause the least
inconvenience, rather than accept those that may entail some
sacrifice. Secondarily treated sewage disposed on surface sand
beds since 1936 at the Otis Air Force Base (now called the
Massachusetts Military Reservation) sewage treatment facility,
for example, has infiltrated the sands into the underlying
unconfined sand and gravel aquifer, producing a 23-m-thick,
760- to 1,970-m-wide, and >3-km-long south-southwest–
trending plume of sewage-contaminated and otherwise pol-
luted water (LeBlanc, 1982). The plume extends in the direc-
tion of the regional flow of groundwater, and is overlain by 6
to 15 m of groundwater produced by precipitation recharge of
the aquifer. Although it was not sampled farther than 3.5 km
from the treatment plant, the south- and southwest-moving
plume is probably flowing in the direction of the downstream
end of the Coonamessett River in East Falmouth and the small
streams, ponds, wetlands, and saltwater bays east of the river 5
km southwest of the head of the plume (LeBlanc, 1982). Sev-
eral other chemical plumes are also present within and outside
the base boundaries. It is estimated that $250 million will be
needed to restore the contaminated aquifer to potability. Those
60 E. Uchupi and Others
 Late Quaternary construction of Cape Cod, Massachusetts
Figure 55. Landsat image of Cape Cod showing the present extent of
the late Pleistocene (late Wisconsin) glacial terrain, the terrains
accreted onto this glacial landscape by coastal marine processes dur-
ing the Holocene, and severe sea-ice conditions on February 15, 1979.
Annotated image courtesy of U.S. Geological Survey, Quissett cam-
pus, Woods Hole (Williams et al., 1981).
of us living in the region must always keep in mind that the
Cape possesses only finite natural resources and those who use
it today have an obligation to leave it in a condition that future
generations can also enjoy. This is particularly true of the
aquifer that underlies the peninsula of Cape Cod, a sole-source
aquifer that provides virtually all of the home and town water
supplies from wells or ponds.
CONCLUSION
The raw data provided by geologic and geophysical studies
of Cape Cod and southeast coastal Massachusetts have been
used in this investigation to reconstruct the huge jigsaw puzzle
that constitutes the geologic history of the region. This exten-
sive panorama consists of three distinct events: fluvial, glacial,
and marine. During the first event, a cuesta/lowland terrain was
carved out of the shelf strata during marine regressions that go
back as far as the Oligocene. The cuesta that extends from Long
Island, New York, in the west to the Grand Banks of New-
foundland in the east is represented by Long Island, Block
Island, the Elizabeth Islands, Martha’s Vineyard, Nantucket
Island, Georges Bank, and the offshore banks on the Scotian
Shelf off Nova Scotia and the Grand Banks of Newfoundland,
Canada. The lowlands associated with this cuesta complex con-
sist of Block Island and Nantucket Sounds, the Gulf of Maine,
Figure 56. Population trends on Cape Cod from 1765 to 1990. Data provided by D. Finn, Cape Cod
Commission.
61
the basins on the Scotian Shelf, the Gulf of Saint Lawrence, and
the shallow basins along the inner edge of the Grand Banks. In
the Cape Cod region, coastal plain remnants reflecting these
erosional events extend to the northern and western edges of
Cape Cod Bay, beneath Stellwagen Bank and the western Gulf
of Maine. Water gaps of the fluvial system that carved this flu-
vial terrain are represented by Vineyard Sound, Great South and
Northeast channels on either side of Georges Bank, and the
Laurentian Channel separating the Scotian Shelf and the Grand
Banks. Although this fluvial terrain was apparently glaciated
more than once during the Pleistocene, only the late Wisconsi-
nan glaciation appears to have had any significant effect on the
fluvial terrain.
In the second event, late Wisconsinan South Channel, Cape
Cod Bay, and Buzzards Bay ice lobes appear to have attained
their maximum extent about 20,000 yr ago, reaching Martha’s
Vineyard, Nantucket Island, and the northern edge of Georges
Bank. The ice may have reached the open sea via Great South
and Northeast channels on either side of Georges Bank. The ice
began to retreat northward no later than 18,000 yr ago as
marine conditions were established in the western Gulf of
Maine no later than 17,600 yr ago, and by 14,000 yr ago the
Cape Cod region was ice free. Prior to its retreat, subglacial
streams carved a complex valley system out of the coastal plain
sediments in Nantucket Sound. The hydraulic head in these
waters was high enough that erosion extended up the back
slope of the cuesta. Cape Cod construction, from river dis-
charge from the retreating ice front, took place from about
18,000 yr to before 14,000 yr ago. Periodic readvances of the
ice lobes led to the deformation of the sediments in front of
them to form the moraines in Martha’s Vineyard and Nantucket
Islands and in the upper Cape. We concur with Oldale and
O’Hara (1984) that Billingsgate Shoal in Cape Cod Bay also
62 E. Uchupi and Others

had such an origin and was not formed by littoral drift during
the Holocene, as suggested by Davis (1896, 1954) and Giese
(1963). The upper Cape sediment wedge was deposited from
southerly discharge from the Cape Cod Bay lobe, a southerly
dipping sediment wedge that graded to a lake that existed in
Nantucket Sound at that time and reached a maximum thick-
ness of about 120 m near the southern coast of the upper Cape
(Fig. 57). Westerly discharge from South Channel lobe depos-
ited a sediment wedge extending from the northern tip of Stell-
wagen Bank to Great South Channel. At the southern end of the
wedge, Nantucket Shoals rests on the coastal plain sediments.
At the northern end of the depocenter, another local sediment

Figure 57. Isopach map, in meters, of the late Wisconsinan glacial deposits of Cape Cod and vicin-
ity. Compiled from Oldale (1969), O’Hara and Oldale (1987, Fig. 5), Oldale and O’Hara (1980,
Fig. 5; 1990, Fig. 7), Oldale et al. (1973, Plate 2B), and seismic reflection profiles recorded by Bal-
lard and Uchupi (1975) in the western Gulf of Maine and archived at the Woods Hole Oceanographic
Institution. The stippled pattern indicates areas where sediment thickness exceeds 80 m.
 Late Quaternary construction of Cape Cod, Massachusetts
accumulation forms the lower Cape. Sediments forming the
lower Cape are graded to a lake that existed in Cape Cod Bay at
that time and reached a maximum thickness of more than 160
m near the ice front and at High Head cliffs (Fig. 57). Partial
collapse of these sediments led to the formation of a lake east of
the lower Cape. The drifts damming the glacial lakes in Cape
Cod Bay and east of the lower Cape were highly permeable,
leading to seepages from the lakes behind them. Runoff from
these seeps led to the erosion of the linear valleys in Cape Cod,
valleys that migrated up the plains and terminated when the
water table became too deep to be an effective erosive agent.
Valleys in the upper Cape drained south toward Nantucket
Sound and those in the lower Cape westward in the direction of
Cape Cod Bay. Cape Cod Bay Glacial Lake drained first south-
westward via Monument Valley, then southward via Bass River,
and then southeastward via a gap between the clastic wedges
forming the lower and upper Cape. How and in what direction
the lake east of the lower Cape drained are yet to be deter-
mined. As the ice retreated northward, large expanses of New
England that had been depressed by the weight of the ice sheet
were flooded by the advancing sea, reaching elevations more
than 30 m above the present level about 14,000 yr ago. As the
regions rebounded isostatically about 12,000 yr ago when the
weight of the ice was removed, the sea regressed and dropped
to a level as much as 55 m below the present one. From there
the sea level rose again, approaching its present level about
1,000 yr ago. Relative sea level is still continuing to rise at a
rate of 2 to 3 mm a–1.
Glacial Cape Cod had an area of about 1,562 km2 and
extended eastward as much as 7 km from its present position.
In contrast, Davis (1896) postulated that the glacial Cape
extended only about 4 km eastward from its present position.
During the third event, submergence by rising sea level and
marine erosion have reduced the glacial Cape to an area of
1,077 km2, or 69.0% of its original size. Today the Cape is
made up of glacial deposits covering an area of 1,077 km2
(88%) with the remaining 140 km2 (12%) consisting of the
Barnstable marsh and spit, the Provincetown Hook and the
bars, spits, and marshes. This composite origin of Cape Cod is
clearly defined by the Landsat image displayed in Figure 55.
The glacial terrain is scarred by numerous kettles, kettle lakes,
dry valleys of spring sapping origin, and morainal ridges of
glaciotectonic origin, giving the terrain a hummocky texture.
Extending from this glacial core are coastal constructional
recent marine features whose linearity clearly displays their ori-
gin. Aeolian forms capping both the glacial and marine terrains
added further complications to the geomorphology of Cape
Cod. The Holocene sediments rarely exceed 10 m in thickness
and only in Provincetown Hook and east of Cape Cod are there
appreciable accumulations of that age (Fig. 58).
Davis believed that the reduction of the glacial Cape and the
formation of the present one took place in about 4,000 yr, but
our investigation indicates that this event lasted 9,500 yr. Davis
63
also proposed that material eroded on the lower Cape was trans-
ported northward to form Provincetown Hook, but our investi-
gations suggest that 82% of the 6.1 km3 (5.0 km3) sediment
volume eroded from 9,500 to 6,000 yr ago (the remaining 18%
was lost offshore), when sea level rose from –30 to –10 m, and
was transported southeastward not northwestward. At the time
Georges Bank was partially exposed and littoral drift in the
direction of Provincetown Hook was inhibited. Sediments trans-
ported southeastward were deposited in a depression near the
Cape’s elbow. This detritus provided about 64% of the depres-
sion’s fill with the remainder coming from the surrounding
glacial plains. From 6,000 yr to 1,000 yr ago, after Georges
Bank finally drowned about 6,000 yr ago, the direction of lit-
toral drift shifted toward the northwest and sediments eroded
from the sea cliffs in the lower Cape were transported in that
direction to construct Provincetown Hook. Of the sediment
eroded from the sea cliffs during the last 6,000 years and avail-
able for the construction of the nearshore features (3.28 km3),
2.8 km3 (86%) was transported northward to construct Province-
town Hook, 0.2 km3 (7.1%) to construct the beaches and off-
shore bars fronting the cliffs, and 0.2 km3 (6.9%) to construct
the spits south of the cliffs. Today the cliffs along the eastern
side of the lower Cape are retreating at a rate of 0.8 m a–1 (Zei-
gler et al., 1964b), a retreat that is enhanced not only by the
erodibility of the material making up the cliffs, but also by a rel-
ative rise in sea level of about 2 to 3 mm a–1. If such a retreat
were to continue for the next 20,000 yr, the Cape would be
destroyed and its former position would be marked by extensive
sand plains, sand shoals, and lag gravels.
Part of the relative rise in sea level, about 1 mm a–1, is
believed to be eustatic in origin, with the remainder being the
result of some tectonic process. It has been suggested that this
tectonic rise in sea level in formerly glaciated regions may be
due to the collapse of the peripheral bulge that migrated north-
ward with the retreating Wisconsin ice sheet. Such a tectonic
origin for the noneustatic part of the rise in sea level in New
England, a region that was deglaciated more than 12,000 yr
ago, may be unrealistic. The Atlantic margin of North America,
like other passive margins, is located along the transition of the
first-order relief features of the Earth’s surface, the continental
plateaus, and oceanic basins, a structural position of consider-
able instability. The Atlantic margin’s geologic history has been
generally one of subsidence since its inception over 200 Ma, a
regime that was complicated further by pronounced changes in
sea level. Prior to the Eocene, transgressions and regressions of
the sea were caused by tectonic factors such as changes in the
rate of sea-floor spreading, ridge push, thermal subsidence, and
sediment/water loading. Since the Eocene, expansion and con-
traction of continental glaciers have added further complica-
tions to sea-level trends. The nature of the basement on the
margin also has influenced sea-level trends in the region. On
the Atlantic margin, basement consists of a mosaic of
allochthonous terranes docked onto the North American craton
64 E. Uchupi and Others

Figure 58. Isopach map, in meters, of postglacial Holocene sediments. Note that the major depo-
center of these sediments is in Provincetown Hook. Compiled from O’Hara and Oldale (1987,
Fig. 7), Oldale and O’Hara (1980, Fig. 8; 1990, Fig. 9), Oldale et al. (1973, Plate 2B), and seismic
reflection profiles recorded by Ballard and Uchupi (1975) and archived at the Woods Hole Oceano-
graphic Institution.

during the closing of the Paleozoic Atlantic (e.g., Uchupi and
Aubrey, 1988). Because these terranes varied in their tectonic
fabric, they have reacted differently to the above changes so
that sea level on the margin has varied not only with time but
also along its length. The possibility that the continental
plateaus are reacting independently from oceanic basins to
internal forces further complicates the history of sea-level
changes. Thus, to ascribe the sea-level trend documented by
tide gauges in New England solely to glacial unloading may not
be realistic (see Emery and Aubrey, 1991, p. 23–52, and refer-
ences therein for a more detailed discussion on the causes of
relative sea-level changes).
 Late Quaternary construction of Cape Cod, Massachusetts
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
This synthesis on the geology of Cape Cod and vicinity
would not have been possible without numerous discussions we
had over the years with R. N. Oldale, who has devoted several
decades of his research activities to the geology of the Cape and
adjacent offshore area. Funds provided via the J. Seward John-
son Chair in Oceanography awarded to Uchupi by the Woods
Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI) made possible his
contribution to this study. WHOI also provided some funding to
complete the graphics. Participation of Giese and Aubrey was
made possible by funds provided by the Minerals Management
Service of the U.S. Department of the Interior through a coop-
erative agreement with the Massachusetts Office of Environ-
mental Affairs. The Texas Bureau of Economic Geology and
the Massachusetts Office of Coastal Zone Management,
through the efforts of J. O’Connell, facilitated the project
administration. This work is partly a result of research spon-
sored by National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Adminis-
tration (NOAA) National Sea Grant College Program Office,
Department of Commerce, under Grants NA90-AA-D-SG480,
WHOI Sea Grant Project R/G-20-PD and NA46RG0470, and
WHOI Project R/G-22-PD. Comments by R. N. Oldale, M.
Allison, and R. S. Williams, Jr., were helpful in the completion
of this work. Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution Contribu-
tion No. 9041.
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