They’re old. The reason that they’re not as craggy and tall as the Rockies or the Himalayas or even the Cascades is because they’ve been eroding for 480 million years. Follow this Twitter thread for an entertaining geology lesson.
Have you ever wondered why we don’t find fossils in the Appalachian mountains?
The truth is, we do, they’re just not the kind of fossils you might think of—there are no mammals, no dinosaurs, no reptiles. There’s something else entirely. 🧵— Alex (he/him) is fighting for trans kids ⚧🏳️⚧️ (@AlexPetrovnia) July 15, 2021
If only the rest of Twitter could be that informative!
“Appalachian” is trending on Twitter!
Great thread. The part about Europe is amazing.
Yup, and that fossil is now causing us no small amount of trouble.
Fossils on the Appalachian trail? I heard of a Republican going there some years ago, with interesting consequences.
And future geologists may find traces of meth all over.
There’s a fun chapter in Caroline Winterer’s American Enlightenments: Pursuing Happiness in the Age of Reason, “Seashells in the Appalachians.”
It’s really really old rock. You probably haven’t heard of it.
I found various bivalve and trilobites, as well as massive amounts of leafed plant fossils in the Blue mountain region. I am still disappointed in not finding any horseshoe crab fossils.
Donated a few hundred pounds of them to The Academy of Natural Sciences in the 1970’s, with details on where they were found.
Pennsylvania coal is Texas oil. I forget where it is but there is an area of Texas where the same rock stratum that makes up Appalachia is sticking out.
Meanwhile, in climate disasters, the Amazon has now flipped to producing more CO2 than it absorbs. Thanks in no small part to Brazil’s version of Donald Trump. What a mess we humans have made of our niche!
By the way, I’ve dug through a lot of my coal shale strippings and there are fossils in there. They’re just all this plant with leaves that look like a locust tree and stalks that look like snakeskin. The whole planet must have been densepacked with the stuff.
one feature is [New River] which is the oldest in the country. The bridge over New River is one of the tallest arches in the country and has annual base jumping from it to the river below, with bungee jumping as well. I once walked the catwalk underneath the bridge, to experience the 1000 ft.drop to the river, with only in a thin grid of steel, to scare the shit out of me. Only got to the halfway point where my courage gave out. Getting TO the catwalk was a challenge, walking on single beams of steel, then climbing over the handrail.
tangent alert: anyone remember what the #FormerPresident called the Appalachian Trail when berating his challenger?
@Salty #1: Indeed. I knew the Caledonian mountains extended into Scotland, but this was news to me. I live on these mountains, lots of small fossils everywhere.
I wonder if you can keep a stromatolite in an aquarium?
Hm. If you don’t include the piedmont, which seem to be included in his map? Or am I missing something?
At the top of a quick search:
Fossils of the Appalachian/Piedmont
http://geology.teacherfriendlyguide.org/index.php/fossils/region-2-appalachian-piedmont
480 million, you say? That’s cool. I happen to live on the smoothed out roots of almost 2 billion year old mountains.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Svecofennian_orogeny
The so-called Anti-Atlas Mountains in Morocco are supposedly also part of the Alleghanian orogeny, so the Appalachians have echoes in three continents.
@10 Erland Meyer
Makes sense, Caledonia is Latin for Scotland.
I like the name given to the original mountain range, the Central Pangaean mountains.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Central_Pangean_Mountains
Cool to think Ben Nevis was part of a mountain range that ran from Morocco to the US.
very cool. I live very close to the palos verda peninsula maybe even on part of it depends where you draw the line. It made up of layers of lime stone that is full of fossil fish and even dolphins. it is fun seeing actual evidence of the movement of the land and the immense time it represents, knowing that it is not stopped no matter what it may seem like day to day.
waiting for the ‘Big One”
uncle frogy
Well, the Canadian Shield which covers most of Eastern Canada and Greenland, with an extension down your way to the Adirondack mountains, has rocks over 4 billion years old. That’s four beeeeelioon.
I live on Vancouver island whose oldest rocks go back a mere 300 million years. We’re relative johnny come latelies, we are.
Turns out that the Appalachian Trail, jumps from Maine to Co. Donegal, Ireland (see map in twitter thread), through Northern Ireland, then jumps to Scotland and over to Norway.
It’s not very well marked on the ground, though.
Collect the whole set!
I can’t access anything on Twitter so I hope it is more accurate than claiming the Appalachians have been eroding for 480 million years.
That date is early Ordovician, but the allegheny orogeny that created the mountain range didn’t occur until Laurussia collided with Gondwana with the closure of the Rheic Ocean. That happened between 35 and 26 million years ago. ( the Piedmont being the earliest phase)
The scaly barked plant fossils in the coals of Pennsylvania are the remains of lycopods, which are relatives to ferns. They covered huge areas of the earth, sort of like vast cypress swamps, but with tree sized club moss and horsetails.
350 to 260 million. Gah!!
I grew up in West Virginia, and spent all my free time in the woods. It’s full of fossils, but they’re all marine shells. I know nothing of biology or fossils, but they all had grooves on them and were shaped like clams. All over the damn place; nothing but clams.
It’s also absolutely littered with small arrowheads, by the way. Lots of fun for a boy in the hills, at least when I wasn’t romancing my sister.
There was a Tumblr post I stumbled across earlier this year and the poster succinctly put it “they are older than bones.”
Really drove the point home.