Right now, I'm in Maine with the geology department from Wellesley, and we're basically taking a tour up the coast of all of the interesting rocks we can find - and man, with 4 geology professors along, 'interesting' basically encompasses EVERYTHING. I don't know enough terminology yet to accurately scientifically convey what I've seen, and I haven't yet uploaded my pictures, but when I do I will post them somewhere because the rocks here are absolutely incredible!! The whole coast (and then some) of Maine wasn't originally part of the North American continental plate - it was probably formed along the coast of Africa, and over millions of years, it's worked its way over, eventually colliding and accreting. So basically, not only are these rocks incredibly old, but they also formed on the other side of the world!!! (Granted they may not have traveled particularly far; it depends on time after Pangea and stuff like that, but anyway.) So we have these huge formations of igneous rocks that have been incredibly metamorphosed (we saw a section where the rock had been heated so much that it nearly melted - but it didn't, because if it had then the layering wouldn't still be visible - so you see these incredible swirls in the rock!! Swirls!! In ROCK!!) There was this whole other section that was both more dramatic and less - more because it was easier to see, but less because it probably required less heat and pressure to form, but basically there were these HUGE folds in the rock, and there were these perfect cross sections where you could see this huge curve in the rock - once upon a time, I would have been like 'hm. That's pretty neat looking.' - but now that I know some of the processes involved, I can't get over how awesome it is.
Man, Geology is so cool.
Ok. We're heading out now, going farther up the coast to look at MORE ROCKS!! Tomorrow morning we're going to Desert Island to hike up Cadillac Mountain to see the sun rise on the highest point on the Atlantic coast of the US - we'll see the sun first that morning! hehe!
:D
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2 comments:
I'm pretty sure the first sunrise is generally on Katahdin, not Cadillac, but it might shift depending on the season.
Don't mean to burst your bubble, in any case -- you'll only be off by a few seconds at worst.
Ah, yes, it does depend on the season. From about October to May (I think) the sunrise point is Cadillac, but for the rest of the year it's Katahdin.
No bubbles burst :D
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