The Niagara Escarpment Ava Is An Ideal Area For Grape Growing

Kalamazoo, Michigan has been around officially around since the eighteen thirties. It has long since a agricultural producer and has been growing steadily throughout the years as a metropolitan area. This paper will focus on the actual land itself mainly looking at the geological history, glacial formations, streams, wind landforms, groundwater, climate, soil, vegetation, agriculture, tourism, and a small summary of the community of the area of Kalamazoo.

The Oak Ridges Moraine is landform located in south central Ontario, Canada. It expands from Caledon and Rice lake river. Furthermore, it covers about 1,900 kilometers in Geographic area and is the most important landforms in Ontario. The Oak Ridges Moraine is made out of 4 wedge shaped structures running east to west ( Uxbridge, Pontypool, Rice Lake, and the Albion Hill wedges ). The wedges are separated from east to west and was formed by sedimentation, the Rice Lake wedge is separated from the other three moraines and is south of Rice Lake. The moraine is made out of major geophysical structures that shape the Oak Ridge Moraine. The western portion of the moraine is by the Niagara Escarpment, the escarpment channels give a way for a

This Lower Keg River member was initiated by a rapid increase in sea level elevation flooding the salt plains of the Contact Rapids. Campbell (1987) described the Lower member of a dark micritic limestone, in a somewhat “euxinic” environment, containing bitumen and fauna such as brachiopods, crinoids, corals, stromatoporoids and gastropods. The unit can be locally dolomitized with a maximum thickness of approximately 50m. The Upper Keg River member was deposited during the restriction of marine waters by the Presqu’ile Barrier reef into the Elk Point Basin (Campbell, 1987). The interior of the basin contains Upper Keg River pinnacle reefs, banks and platforms. Campbell (1987) noted the spatial differences in the type of carbonate deposition within sub-basins; areas from the Peace River Arch to southern Alberta show a fringing carbonate platform, while the Rainbow, Zama and Shekelie basins contained the majority of the

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

1. The geology of Ontario is divided into three layers of rock. The first layer, Precambrian Canadian Shield rocks, is composed of mainly igneous and metamorphic rocks from the Precambrian Eon. This layer is the eldest at approximately 3-0.8x109 years old and is therefore the bottom-most layer (L). Although this layer is largely found in the Canadian Shield region of Ontario, glacial erratics from the Precambrian layer can be found at the Don Valley Brickyard (L). In the GTA, younger sediments and rocks cover the Precambrian rock layer (L). The second layer is Paleozoic rock, composed of sedimentary rocks
. It was deposited 600-400 million years

The landscape of New England was covered by a massive ice sheet called the Laurentide glacial sheet extending all the way down to New York. The physical footprint of this ice flow left prehistoric fossils embedded in the soil throughout New England. As the sheet receded, it left a trail of debris which scraped the land forming mountain bluffs, rivers, lakes and ponds. Such areas like Springfield, Hadley, Amherst, and Sunderland were later communities that developed after Lake Hitchcock which covered the valley drained out and receding into the current bank of the Connecticut River. The emptying of the basin flowed right down to the Atlantic Ocean emptying in Connecticut. Prior to European settlers such towns were previous Native American lands

From here the whole valley could be seen and it was easily observed where the glaciers cut into the valley. The second site was a field across from the street from the mudboil. This site was underneath where the slide happened. It used to be farm land, but since the slide the soil has not been able to support anything but invasive species. Additionally, there are now standing pools of salt water in the field that were not there before. Walking through the field the high sulfur content can easily be smelled, which is a result of the slide. The valley face now has a steep grade that was left there after the loss of soil from the slide. The third site was the Onondaga Creek. The creek is extremely turbid due to a high amount of sediment carried by the water. This sediment is lacustrine material, mostly clay, and gets deposited further downstream. The fourth site was a view of the alluvial fan. This is a cone shaped fan that spreads out water and debris. It gives an idea of where the water and soil were forced to go during the slide. The final site was the mudboil and its connection to the Onondaga Creek. Walking into the mudboil there are recessional rings, which are evidence of material slipping and causing an increase in pressure. There is some moving water, but it is from a lateral source. The mudboil itself is formed by a vertical poll of water. The ground in the mudboil looks solid but is actually soft and unsupportive. If there was a need to release pressure there would have been a small eruption of water in the mudboil. The water coming out would contain sediments and drains towards the

Introduction………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..2 Hudson River Formation……………………………………………………………………………………………………………..5 Hudson Canyon…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………12 Glacial History…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..14 Conclusion…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………17 Bibliography………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………18 Maps & Diagrams…..………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….19 Hudson Canyon……………………………………………………………………………………………………………..19 Geological Processes……………………………………………………………………………………………………….22

If you have ever heard of the Last Glacial Period, you would know that it covered majority of Canada and northern US in a thick blanket of glaciers. When the Last Glacial Period ended and all of the glaciers retracted, it scraped away vast amount of soil and minerals from certain areas of Canada, leaving some areas with rich and fertile soil suitable for farming due to deposits from the ice. However, in other regions such as the Canadian Shield, were left scarred with very thin soil that is no longer sufficient for agriculture. When travelling through the area, I had expected to see a desert created from the desertification of the thin layers of soil. To my surprise, vast amount of trees grow here in the southern parts of the Canadian Shield!

This place is called Niagara falls which is located in the border of New York, Canada, and the Ontario which are made up of three waterfalls, the American Falls, the Bridal Veil Falls,and the Horseshoe Falls.The Niagara falls water stems from the upper Great Lakes and the river are estimated to be 12,000 years old.When the falls were formed, the edge of the falls was as much as seven miles further down river than it is today.Until the !950s, when the flow of water began to be controlled, the brinks of the falls moved backward an estimated three feet every year because of erosion.

Studies and History of Niagara Falls indicate that thousands of years ago, the Falls was 11 km downstream from its current spot. Erosion was a major issue associated with the Canadian Falls. And the rate of average erosion of the Niagara Falls rose to 1 metre per year until early 1950s. Thereafter the water diversions have spread out more evenly reducing the erosion in Niagara Falls. The

This area is also known for its award-winning wineries with several offering tours, free tastings and affordable meals in beautiful surroundings. If you enjoy walking,

Sandstone is known to have a higher resistance to erosion than that of shale and limestone. The Ridge and Valley regions of our landscape were originally designed with shale-based high points and sandstone-based low points. As the effects of weathering via erosion

. In the last 20,000 years, weathering, erosion, and glaciation have carved the sharp relief of Rocky Mountain peaks such as Rampart Mountain in Banff National Park. The westward movement of the North American plate continues unabated, exposing British Columbia’s populous coastal lowlands to an ever-present threat of

The Niagara Escarpment is one of the world’s natural wonders preserved by the UNESCO World Biosphere Reserve since 1990. It is a forested landscape made up of rocks ranging several hundred meters in height and consists with rich biodiversity and a habitat to many types of wildlife. The ridge extends 725 km in length from Queenston on Niagara River through densely populated areas like Hamilton, Milton to Tobermory at the tip of Bruce peninsula (CanadianEncyclopedia). The escarpment exists in a horseshoe shape around Michigan and dates back up to 430 to 450 million years ago when the area lay under a shallow sea, which is referred as the Ordovician era by geologists. It was formed through different processes of erosion by weathering and streams and deposition of different particles. Today it well known for one of its numerous waterfalls those lie within, known as the Niagara Falls. The ridge can affect the lives of the community around in various different ways by its geomorphology, hydrology and climatology which will be further elaborated.