APPALACHIAN GEOLOGY INVESTIGATION - INSTRUCTIONS
Do assignment in composition book. Cut questions from each part and tape into composition book. Your responses for each set of questions should follow before the next set of questions. Use the numbering system provided for your responses. Leave space if there is a question you do not understand.
Listen to each video and pause often so you can write your responses. The questions are in order of how the information is presented in each video. The videos are each less than ten minutes long.
Here are some terms you will encounter with definitions.
VOCABULARY epicontinental sea- an inland sea is a shallow sea that covers central areas of continents during periods of high sea level bedrock – the solid rock that underlies loose material such as soil, sand, silt, clay or gravel. dropstone – isolated fragments of rock found in finer-grained water-deposited sedimentary rocks. They range from small pebbles to boulders.
paleosol - a soil horizon that was formed as a soil during a past geologic period anoxic - relating to or marked by a severe deficiency of oxygen orogeny – a mountain-building episode characterized by intense folding and thrust faulting
Carboniferous – a geologic period that combines the Mississippian and Pennsylvanian periods.
Large important reserves of coal originate during this time. carbonate platform – a sedimentary body with topographic relief composed of limestone carbon sequestration – the process of capture and long-term storage of atmospheric carbon dioxide alluvial plain – a landform of low relief created by the deposition of sediment over a long period of time by one or more rivers coming from highland regions arthropods – an invertebrate animal having an exoskeleton, a segmented body and jointed appendages entrenched (incised) meander - If the slope of an established meandering stream is suddenly increased, it will resume downward erosion. As the stream erodes downwards, its established meandering pattern will remain as a deep valley

APPALACHIAN GEOLOGY – Part 1 – Late Precambrian to Cambrian
1.
What was the origin of the 1.2 billion year old Cranberry gneiss?
2.
What did the Grenville Orogeny form in the late Cambrian?
3.
(Write the following sentence and fill in the blank) All continents are amalgamations of pre-existing (fill in the blank)
4.
What is the name of the first documented supercontinent?
5.
When was this supercontinent in existence?
6.
What evidence do the late Precambrian dated Connorock and Mt. Rogers formations (in Virginia) preserve?
7.
The dropstones in these formations include pieces of what rock formation?
8.
About 540ma, Rodinia split apart. Name the four ancient landmasses that resulted from this.
9.
What did much of the region become about 450ma?
10.
Great thicknesses of what type of rock were deposited at that time?
11.
What would be a modern equivalent of what this region was like?
12.
The approach of what system made this region go from being a passive margin to a tectonically active margin about 440ma?
13.
Eventually the sediments from this system accreted (became added on) to
Laurasia and were folded, faulted and uplifted into what ancient mountain range (the first large mountain chain of the Paleozoic in this region)

APPALACHIAN GEOLOGY – Part 2 – The Ordovician World
1.
What was sunlight like in the early Ordovician period? What was this the case?
2.
What marine organisms first appeared or became far more common in the
Ordovidian period?
3.
What type of rock can fossils of these species be found?
4.
What “conquered the land” during the late Ordovician and early Silurian periods?
5.
What formed off the eastern coast of ancient North America during the late
Ordovician? (FYI - this is how the much of the bedrock that underlie the
Carolina Terrane - our geologic region of the state - originated)
6.
What is the name of the land underlain by limestone bedrock called?
7.
What are some characteristics of this topography?
8.
Graptolites are delicate marine animals preserved in dark gray to black shales that formed in sedimentary basins. Why were graptolites preserved in this type of rock?
9.
What is the Queenston Delta?
10.
What is a thrust fault?
11.
What are the two formations exposed above and below the Lake
Champlain (Vermont) thrust fault?
12.
How did the climate change during the late Ordovician?
13.
What formed in the southern hemisphere at this time and what was the result?
14.
What climate switches took place between 480ma and 460ma?
15.
What was going on with the Gondwanaland supercontinent during this time?
16.
Why did 85% of all species become extinct at the end of the Ordovician?
17.
How is the Ordovician mass extinction different from large extinctions that followed?
18.
What type of climate returned in the early Silurian?

APPALACHIAN GEOLOGY – Part 3 – Devonian
1.
What was different about the plants and soils in the Devonian compared to the past?
2.
What grew in the forests of the Devonian?
3.
Describe the appearance of the early amphibians?
4.
Describe the ocean currents and land surfaces during this time period.
5.
What was the cause of deep water anoxia (low oxygen levels) during the
Devonian?
6.
What geological evidence of the Devonian can be observed throughout the
United States?
7.
If you could go back in time to this period, why would you have difficulty starting a campfire?
8.
What life forms were the most vulnerable during this time period?
9.
What did the Ordovician Taconic Mountains look like during this time?
10.
Describe the Caledonian orogeny?
11.
What is preserved in late Devonian sediments that points to a plate collision and a subduction zone of the east coast of ancient North America?
12.
Describe the Catskill Delta?

APPALACHIAN GEOLOGY – Part 4 – Pangea
1.
What occupied most of North America at the beginning of the Mississippian period?
2.
Great thicknesses of what type of rock were deposited?
3.
What caused a reduction of atmospheric carbon dioxide?
4.
What caused ice house conditions (and the reappearance of ice caps) on the Earth?
5.
What caused the significant atmospheric rise of oxygen?
6.
Describe what happened when the continent of Gondwanaland approached the ancient North American continent from the south.
7.
What was deposited over the limestone beds that formed during the
Mississippian period? Where did this sediment come from?
8.
Describe the geographic conditions of the delta that formed to the west of the youthful, tall Appalachian Mountains.
9.
What animals and plants is the Pennsylvanian period known for?
10.
Why did the abundant, large arthropods not need to live near water to thrive?
11.
What other class of animals that evolved during this time, also did not need to live near water to thrive?
12.
Why did the cores of more ancient mountain chains become exposed?
13.
What is the name of the current mountain range that is comprised of these ancient (late Precambrian and early Paleozoic) igneous and metamorphic rocks that became exposed during the Pennsylvanian period?
14.
When was the formation of the Appalachian Mountains and the supercontinent of Pangea completed?

APPALACHIAN GEOLOGY – Part 5 – Resurrection
1.
What happened to the Appalachians after their formation during the
Pennsylvanian and Permian periods and the formation of Pangea?
2.
What was happening to the supercontinent Pangea 220 ma?
3.
What geologic features formed as Pangea began to split apart?
4.
What is the evidence of dinosaurs during the Triassic period?
5.
What is special about the Anchisaurus?
6.
How did the Appalachians appear during the Jurassic period 200ma?
7.
Where are Jurassic and Cretaceous period rocks preserved?
8.
What was sea level like 85ma?H
9.
Describe how the Appalachian Mountains were “resurrected” 65ma?
10.
What were the main two directions of stream flow after the formation of the Appalachian Mountains?
11.
What is the nature of the flow of streams that pre-date the uplift of the
Appalachian Mountains? (how do these streams flow compared to the ones in question #10)?
12.
Explain isostatic rebound as it pertains to the resurrection of the
Appalachian Mountains.
13.
How do meandering streams become entrenched?
14.
How many periods of uplift occurred during the Cenozoic Era, which began
64ma?
15.
What was the amazing discovery that took place in May 2000 in eastern
Tennessee? Describe how these animals became preserved.
16.
What is Claire’s favorite college basketball team?