Sleeping Giant (also known as the Blue Hills and Mount Carmel), (Quiripi: Hobbomock), is a rugged traprock mountain with a high point of , located north of New Haven, Connecticut. A prominent landscape feature visible for miles, the Sleeping Giant receives its name from its anthropomorphic resemblance to a slumbering human figure as seen from either the north or south. The Giant is known for its expansive clifftop vistas, rugged topography, and microclimate ecosystems. Most of the Giant is located within Sleeping Giant State Park.

Geology

left|thumb|140px|Close-up of traprock on the Sleeping Giant

left|thumb|140px|Faulting

Sleeping Giant, a fault-block ridge that formed 200 million years ago during the Triassic and Jurassic periods, is composed of traprock, also known as basalt, an extrusive volcanic rock. Minor earthquakes have also been measured by seismographs and reported by residents. Basalt is a dark colored rock, but the iron within it weathers to a rusty brown when exposed to the air, lending the ledges a distinct reddish appearance. Basalt frequently breaks into octagonal and pentagonal columns, creating a unique "postpile" appearance. Huge slopes made of fractured basalt scree are visible beneath many of the ledges of Sleeping Giant. The basalt cliffs are the product of several massive lava flows hundreds of feet deep that welled up in faults created by the rifting apart of North America from Eurasia and Africa. These basalt floods of lava happened over a period of 20 million years. Erosion occurring between the eruptions deposited deep layers of sediment between the lava flows, which eventually lithified into sedimentary rock. The resulting "layer cake" of basalt and sedimentary sheets eventually faulted and tilted upward. Subsequent erosion wore away the weaker sedimentary layers at a faster rate than the basalt layers, leaving the abruptly tilted edges of the basalt sheets exposed, creating the distinct linear ridge and dramatic cliff faces visible today. One way to imagine this is to picture a layer cake tilted slightly up with some of the frosting (the sedimentary layer) removed in between. After more than a year of clean up, largely in part by the Sleeping Giant Park Association, the park reopened on June 14, 2019. According to the Hartford Courant, officials from the state estimated restoration cost $735,000.

Recreation

Sleeping Giant State Park offers clifftop views of much of New Haven County, some of Hartford County and, atmospheric conditions permitting, across Long Island Sound to the Shoreham area on Long Island.

Notes

See also

  • Metacomet Ridge
  • National Register of Historic Places listings in New Haven County, Connecticut
  • Old Man of Hoy, a rock pillar off Scotland that resembles a standing man
  • Old Man of the Mountain, a face that used to stand out from a cliff in New Hampshire
  • Quinnipiac River
  • Quinnipiac Trail
  • Sleeping Giant (Kauai)
  • Sleeping Giant (Ontario)
  • West Rock Ridge State Park
  • Adjacent summits:

{| border="1" cellpadding="2" cellspacing="0"

! ↑ North !! ↑ Northwest !! Southwest ↓ !! South ↓ !! Southeast ↓

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|align="center" width="120pt" |thumb|center|120px|[[Hanging Hills]]

|align="center" width="120pt"|center|thumb|120px|[[Mount Sanford (Connecticut)|Mount Sanford]]

|align="center" width="120pt"|center|thumb|120px|[[West Rock Ridge]]

|align="center" width="120pt" |thumb|160px|center|[[East Rock]]

|align="center" width="120pt" |thumb|100px|center|[[Peter's Rock]]

|-

|}

References

</references>

  • Sleeping Giant State Park Connecticut Department of Energy and Environmental Protection
  • Sleeping Giant State Park Map Connecticut Department of Energy and Environmental Protection
  • Sleeping Giant Park Association