08 July 2011

Appalachians

I've been reading about geology, the most epic of the sciences.

Long ago, the continent of Africa collided with what’s now the east cost of North America. The collision lasted for, oh, eighty million years and left behind... the Appalachian mountains.

The Appalachians you see now are not the originals, though. Those were some serious, Himalayan-scale mountains, but time and water wore them away to level ground. The current Appalachians are made of more of the same rock that was left underground, untouched by erosion, and uplifted quite recently, no more than sixty million years ago.

The Earth is at a rolling boil.

1 comment:

C. Barnett said...

Bubbling and toiling, for sure. Things like Yellowstone scare the hell out of me. Just think of the ripples left by a large astronomical collision. This lump of gravitational jelly probably wiggles for a good number of years after that. I've spent tons of time considering the state of the earth and it's critters along the timeline. This post makes me smile because I didn't know that particular fact. Thank you, sir. :)