The resilient land of Acadia National Park began rising after glaciers retreated north around 15,000 years ago. It continued to rise relative to the sea until about 10,000 years ago, when the area finally stabilized. The level of the sea worldwide rose close to its present height as the ice sheets melted. Although this sea level rise had leveled off to less than an inch everyone one hundred years, today's oceans rise at a rate of nearly an inch per decade!

The rising sea and depressed land mass created a "drowned coast." This means that what appears today as arms and fingers of the sea were once river valleys; islands were the tops of mountains; headlands and peninsulas were rocky ridges.

The bedrock gave substance and the glaciers gave character, but without the sea, Acadia would be like a gem without a setting. Each headland, bay, and inlet reveals the majestic interface between sea and land. Acadia's rocky headlands bear the brunt of enormous energies unleashed in waves that batter cliffs and erupt in lofty spray.