The Esopus plains and Hurley were shaped by immense environmental change, from tropical seas with huge coral reefs to mile-thick glaciers scraping and scouring the land, as cool tundra and spruce forests gave way to thick forests of familiar trees and Esopus Creek broadened the valley and deposited thick alluvial soils. European arrivals cut down the forests for farms and pastures, roads and houses, while fires, droughts, and floods also helped shape the area. These changes eliminated some plants and animals and encouraged others, so native cattails and bluebirds now compete with alien species like purple loosestrife and starlings, beeches and chickadees are old-timers while ash trees and red-bellied woodpeckers arrived more recently, and oaks survive fires better than white pines even though pines quickly take advantage of sunny openings when floods knock down the oaks. The balance changes constantly even when the landscape seems immutable.