The Devonian Era

The Proterozoic Westboro Formation (ca. 800 Ma), composed of massive quartzites and interbedded schists, is interpreted as a passive margin assemblage deposited on Avalon before the microcontinent rifted from Gondwana. The Westboro experienced various pulses of deformation and metamorphism during the Proterozoic. Of notable interest are 1-to-3-meter wide, N-NE striking, shallow dipping mylonitic zones exposed in and around the Breakheart Reservation in Saugus, MA. At one location blocks of eroded mylonite are contained in a Westboro debrite. A possible interpretation is that mylonites exposed along a rift-basin border fault were eroded and incorporated upper Westboro through mass gravity transport.

The Taconic orogeny is evidenced in the Hudson Valley. This orogeny has formed by the convergence of the Laurentia and the Shelburne arc. The Taconic orogeny has led to the formation of sedimentary rocks that can be classified into autochthonous and allochthonous, whereas the Normanskill formation is autochthonous, and five distinctive thrust slices from the low Taconic sequence are allochthonous. Another feature is the Cortland Complex, which is a late Ordovician magmatic intrusion formed by norite, gabbro, hornblende norite, monzodiorite, diorite, hornblende pyroxenite, and peridotite. The sedimentary rocks in the Dutchess county and Westchester counties, New York, have suffered metamorphism due to convergence activities as well as magma

Devonian until the Cretaceous. Hildebrand (2009, 2013) cast doubt the back thrust interpretation of the western US Cordillera.

“Cannery Row in Monterey in California is a poem, a stink, a grating noise, a quality of light, a tone, a habit, a nostalgia, a dream”(Steinbeck 1). In John Steinbeck’s Cannery Row, Mack and the boys are trying to do something cordial for their friend Doc, who has been extremely amiable without requesting a reward. Mack hits on the idea that they should throw a thank-you party, and the entire community quickly becomes involved. Unfortunately, the party rages out of control, and Doc's lab and mood are ruined. In an effort to return to Doc's good graces, Mack and the boys decide to throw another party, but make it work this time.

Deposition of sediments began in the basin during the Cambrian era, but subsidence and basin filling occurred the most during the Ordovician,

These Paleozoic rocks are steeply plunging sandstones and siltstones, with a little event of limestone at Lilydale - the Early Devonian Lilydale Limestone. The Silurian rocks were stored in profound water, while the Devonian rocks, which are exceptionally fossiliferous, appear to have been stored in shallower water. These Silurian and Devonian rocks were folded into a progression of anticlines

Plate tectonics is the scientific theory that attempts to explain the movements of the Earth's lithosphere that have formed the landscape features we see across the globe today” (Briney). Geology defines “plate” as a large slab of solid rock, and “tectonics” is part of the Greek root word for “to build.” Together the words define how the Earth’s surface is built up of moving plates. The theory of plate tectonics dictates that individual plates, broken down into large and small sections of rock, form Earth’s lithosphere. These fragmented bodies of rock move along each other atop the Earth’s liquid lower mantle to create the plate boundaries that have shaped Earth’s landscape. Plate tectonics originated from meteorologist Alfred Wegener’s theory, developed in the early 20th century. In 1912, he realized that the east coast of South America and the west coast of Africa appeared to piece together like a jigsaw puzzle. He further examined the globe and deduced that all of Earth’s continents could somehow be assembled together and proposed the idea that the continents had once been linked in a single supercontinent called Pangaea. To explain today’s position of the continents, Wegener theorized that they began to drift apart approximately 300 million years ago. This theory

Two plates can separate to split continents apart, to form new oceans, or to enlarge existing oceans by forming new crust in giant rifts in the ocean floor. Plates can converge and collide, forming chains of volcanic islands and deep trenches in the ocean, volcanic mountain belts along coasts, or giant belts of folded mountains between continental masses. These movements and their physical consequences are studied in the branch of geology called plate

The creation of the Ring of Fire is very interesting too, it is the result of plate tectonics. These are huge slabs of Earth’s crust that fit together like the pieces of a puzzle. These plates can collide, stay apart, or move up right next to each other. The convergent plate boundaries are formed by plates colliding into each other. The heavier plates slide under the lighter plates causing a deep trench in the ocean floor, as we talked about earlier. If you went down into the ocean you’d be able to see a bunch of trenches in the ocean floor running parallel to corresponding volcanic arcs like the Ring of Fire. This allows islands and continental mountain ranges to be created. A divergent boundary is formed by

The New Madrid Seismic Zone is also known as the New Madrid Fault Line. A fault is a thin zone of crushed rock that separates the Earth’s crust. Whenever an earthquake takes place, it occurs on one of the faults. Then the rock on one of the sides slips with respect to the other. The fault line is made up of reactivated faults. The reactivated faults formed when North America began to separate. Faults were formed next to rift and igneous rocks were formed from the magma that was pushed up to the surface (Wapedia (2010). The rift was covered with younger sediments. The sediments that covered the rift included Mesozoic and Cenozoic sedimentary rocks of the Mississippi embayment. Large amounts of the sediment was loosely consolidated, soft and sandy as a result of the ground shaking, ground deformation, slides, slumps, and liquefaction. A mass of intrusive igneous rock (also known as pluton, mass of igneous rock and a deep reservoir of magma)

The Cambrian era was over 500 million years ago, according to many scientists’ studies. It got it’s name “Cambrian” from the Roman word Cambria which acts as a name for

The Permian Time frame was the last time of the Paleozoic Time. Enduring from 299 million to 251 million years back, it took after the Carboniferous Time frame and went before the Triassic Time frame. By the early Permian, the two-extraordinary mainland’s of the Paleozoic, Gondwana and Euramerica, had crashed to frame the supercontinent Pangaea. Pangaea was formed like a thickened letter "C." The best bend of the "C" comprised of landmasses that would later wind up present-day Europe and Asia.

The Mesozoic Era is an interval of geological time from about 252 to 66 million years ago. It is also called the Age of Reptiles, a phrase introduced by the 19th century paleontologist Gideon Mantell .

The Appalachian Mountains were formed an estimated 480 million years ago, being one of the first plate collisions constructing the supercontinent Pangea. During the Paleozoic Era, the region was submerged, layers of sediment and carbonate rock began to form on top of the already submerging sea bottom. In the Ordovician Period, the Appalachian passive margin evolved into a plate boundary when another plate collided with and sank the North American plate, creating the Appalachians. The Mountains continued to form as volcanoes grew, plate collisions, all while the supercontinent formed. Pangea began its separation 220 million years ago, halting the creation of many mountain ranges. The Appalachian Mountains had almost flattened completely out,

Jurassic is a period of time with Dinosaurs, rodents and birds. There were also island seas consisting of sharks, sea monsters and blood-red planktons. The existing plants in that period were cycads, ferns and conifers. The Mesozoic era was about 245 million years ago to 65 years ago, so it almost lasted about 180 years in total. The Mesozoic era is divided into three periods of Triassic, Jurassic and Cretaceous. Mesozoic era means middle animals and it is the era, which the word’s fauna has changed from what is in the Paleozoic era and the most famous organisms of this era are dinosaurs. In the Mesozoic era, the extinction of more than 90 percent of species in the earth was observed and the reason behind it was mostly volcanic eruptions and climate changes. On the other hand, this era had massive changes that represented ecological niches and rise to new creatures such as rodent-size mammals and first dinosaurs. In Triassic, which was the first period of Mesozoic, the mammals and first dinosaurs existed. Later than that, the second period was Jurassic, which giant shaped dinosaurs and other kinds of dinosaurs were developed. Besides that the first flowering plants and primitive birds, with long teeth appeared in that era as well.