Purgatory Chasm State Reservation

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Coordinates: 42°7′42″N, 71°42′52″W Purgatory Chasm State Reservation is a Massachusetts state park located in Sutton. The park is managed by the Department of Conservation and Recreation.

[edit] Description

Purgatory Chasm is a granite chasm one-quarter of a mile long with walls reaching up to 70 feet. The Chasm is popular with children, hikers and rock climbers. There are about 2 miles of hiking trails around the chasm. In the chasm it is apparent that there is no source of water for a stream today. There is no water erosion evidence in the chasm either, only in the Purgatory Brook Valley. The boulders taken from the chasm are large, unrounded and widely scattered in the valley immediately beyond the chasm. All of these points indicate that the chasm was formed by the plucking action of a glacier moving over a preexisting crack in rock caused by faulting. This is a typical mechanism of glacier erosion. Purgatory Chasm Geology