Sparkling beaches, tidal estuaries, and granite headlands ornament the Massachusetts coast, while giant folds of gneiss and schist crisscross the interior, squeezed up between colliding continents like toothpaste from a tube. James Skehan explains the geologic history behind the rocks and landforms visible from the state's highways, including such well-known historic features as Bloody Bluff, Beacon Hill, Plymouth Rock, and Walden Pond. Interspersed through the guidebook are tales of pioneering geologists such as Harvard's Louis Agassiz, the first to propose that continental glaciers--not the remnants of Noah's Flood as early settlers had imagined--polished the state's bedrock and deposited its enormous boulders and sand plains.
zzzNumerous maps and photographs reveal ancient volcanoes, marble potholes, colorful minerals, dinosaur footprints, and the first American railroad--built with blocks of Quincy granite in 1815. Geologic roadguides include tours of Boston Harbor Islands National Recreation Area, Cape Cod National Seashore, Nantucket, Martha's Vineyard, and Mount Greylock State Reservation.
zzzFrom the author: "Spectacular glacial landforms, gifts of continental ice sheets from the past 150,000 years, cover much of the bedrock of the Commonwealth. Sand and gravel deposits record the story of glacial lakes that formed when the 2000-ft.-thick glaciers melted from this part of southern New England 14,000 years ago. Massachusetts is blessed with water-bearing glacial sands but, in the view of those who've tried to cultivate its uplands, is cursed by cobble and boulder till deposited from the melting glaciers." 392 pages - 6 x 9 inches
91 two-color maps - 125 b/w photographs - 38 b/w illustrations
glossary - bibliography - index
Publication date: 2001 |
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