Week 5 - Converging Plates

View of the Great Smokey Mountains National Park. 

http://gotbooks.miracosta.edu/geology/regions/blue_ridge.html

This week I visited the Appalachian Mountains. The Appalachian Mountains were created over 350 million years ago by the converging continental plates of the American and African plate. Before there was an Atlantic Ocean, the African continental plate converged into the American plate causing deformation from compression. The compression of plates caused the plates to lift and fold under the constant pressure over a period of 200 million years. The type of rock that was uplifted is made up of mostly sedimentary rock from an ancient ocean that existed over the Iapetus plate.

Cross Section of the Appalachian Mountains showing the different rock types and deformation.

http://gotbooks.miracosta.edu/geology/regions/blue_ridge.html

Lutgens, F. K, Tarbuck, E. J., & Tasa, D. (2016). Essentials of geology. (13th ed.). Upper        Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall (Pearson).