Vroman’s Nose was shaped by glacial movement as the Wisconsin glacier passed across the hills, plucking large chunks of bedrock to form the cliffs on its south side while scouring sediment created the gentle north-facing slope. Glacial scratches known as striations and chatter marks, made by stones at the bottom of the moving glacier, show that the ice advanced down the valley. During a time of climate fluctuation and glacial melting, Vroman’s Nose was almost completely under water, with its summit at about 1,220 feet and Lake Schoharie at about 1,170 feet, so the Dance Floor and steep cliff face formed a cliffed shoreline of glacial Lake Schoharie, and for a time Vroman’s Nose stood as an island. The nose contains many layers of sedimentary bedrock, with Hamilton sandstone from the Devonian era as the uppermost layer and softer shale in the older layers beneath.