The Hudson Valley of New York has a geologic history spanning over a billion years. Local geology professor Steven Schimmrich has written an interesting and accessible account for anyone who's ever wondered about the deep time history of this beautiful area. Covering more than geology, this book also includes tangents on the history of life, human and economic history of the Valley, and the importance of the Hudson River in the modern-day environmental movement.
New York's version of Los Angeles's famous La Brea Tar Pits? Sand Dunes in the city of Albany? Frederic Church's Olana, a gift of the Ice Age? A Niagara Falls in Philmont? Mastodons in Greenville? The Vanderbilt Mansion and Springwood, FDR's home in Hyde Park, at risk? Join Professors Robert and Johanna Titus on a tour of the Hudson Valley and see this familiar region with new eyes the eyes of geologists who see a half-mile-thick sheet of ice grinding its way down the valley and overtopping even the highest mountains. With the Tituses as your guides, -see- an ancient Manhattan high and dry with the Atlantic shoreline 100 miles to the southeast, North/South Lake State Park as a giant and frigid -waterslide park,- and the immense expanse of Glacial Lake Albany stretching the entire length of the Hudson Valley with its deltas that would become the sites of some of America's most famous estates. Finally, witness the cataclysmic flood that cascaded through the valley at the end of the Ice Age as a great ice dam broke and a gigantic wall of water swept down the valley. The Tituses take the reader through the Catskills, the Shawangunks, the Taconics, along the banks of the Hudson River, to Bash Bish Falls and Lake Taghkanic to all those unique and beautiful places that make the Hudson Valley -the landscape that defined America- and demonstrate that all this rose phoenix-like from the devastation caused by the slow, inexorable advance of a grinding, half-mile-thick bulldozer of ice and the raging flood that followed its retreat. The result of these devastating events is the landscape that inspired the Hudson River School painters and America's pioneer landscape architects gifts of the Ice Age, and the familiar landscape we enjoy today.
Winner of the 2012 Award for Excellence presented by the Greater Hudson Heritage Network The diverse contributions to Environmental History of the Hudson River examine how the natural and physical attributes of the river have influenced human settlement and uses, and how human occupation has, in turn, affected the ecology and environmental health of the river. The Hudson River Valley may be America's premier river environmental laboratory, and by bringing historians and social scientists together with biologists and other physical scientists, this book hopes to foster new ways of looking at and talking about this historically, commercially, and aesthetically important ecosystem. Native people's influences on the ecological integrity of aquatic and shoreline communities were generally local and minor, and for the first 12,000 years or so of human use, the Hudson River was valued mainly as a source of water, food, and transportation. Since the arrival of European colonists, however, commerce has been the engine that has driven development and use of the river, from the harvesting of beaver pelts and timber to the siting of manufacturing industries and power plants, and all of these uses have had pervasive effects on the river's aquatic and terrestrial ecosystems. In the meantime, aesthetic movements such as the Hudson River School of painting have sought to recover and preserve the earlier pastoral landscape, anticipating the more recent efforts by environmentalists that have led to dramatic improvements in water quality, shoreline habitats, and fish populations. Despite the pervasive forces of commerce, the Hudson River has retained its world-class scenic qualities. The Upper Hudson remains today a free-flowing, tumbling mountain stream, and the Lower Hudson a fjord penetrated and dominated by the Hudson Highlands. The Hudson's unique history continues to affect current uses and will surely influence the future in remarkable ways.
This 4th edition of The Geology of Scotland is greatly expanded from the previous edition with 34 authors contributing to 20 chapters. A new format has been adopted to provide a different perspective on the geology of Scotland. A brief introduction is followed by a chapter outlining some of the important historical aspects that in the 19th century placed Scottish geologists in the forefront of a new science. Scotland is constructed from a number of terranes that finally combined in roughly their present positions prior to about 410 million years ago. Thus the geology of each terrane is described up the time of amalgamation, providing chapters on the Southern Uplands, Midland Valley, Highlands, Grampian and Hebridean terranes. At the end of this section, a brief synthesis summarizes the events that resulted in the amalgamation of the various terranes into the present configuration. Traditional practice is followed in the description of the Old Red Sandstone, Carboniferous, Permo-Trias, Jurassic, Cretaceous, tertiary and Quaternary strata. A separate chapter covers Tertiary igneous rocks. An attempt is made to tell the story of the geological evolution of Scotland, rather than catalogue all areas and formations. Priority is given to the onshore geology, encouraging the reader to go into the field and visit some of the world-class geology on show in Scotland. The chapters are broadly-based, attempting to integrate the sedimentary and igneous histories, and summarize changes in palaeogeography and palaeoenvironments. Economic aspects are covered with chapters on Metalliferous Minerals, Bulk Resources, Coal and Hydrocarbons. A new departure is the chapter on aspects of Environmental Geology and sustainability. Additionally, this publication contains a colour section of 32 plates, illustrating aspects of Scottish Geology, as well as a coloured geological map of Scotland.
A thrillingly rendered, yet “level–headed” look at the Cascadia Subduction Zone and the devastating natural disasters it promises (Booklist) There is a crack in the earth's crust that runs roughly 31 miles offshore, approximately 683 miles from Northern California up through Vancouver Island off the coast of British Columbia. The Cascadia Subduction Zone has generated massive earthquakes over and over again throughout geologic time—at least thirty–six major events in the last 10,000 years. This fault generates a monster earthquake about every 500 years. And the monster is due to return at any time. It could happen 200 years from now, or it could be tonight. The Cascadia Subduction Zone is virtually identical to the offshore fault that wrecked Sumatra in 2004. It will generate the same earthquake we saw in Sumatra, at magnitude nine or higher, sending crippling shockwaves across a far wider area than any California quake. Slamming into Sacramento, Portland, Seattle, Victoria, and Vancouver, it will send tidal waves to the shores of Australia, New Zealand, and Japan, damaging the economies of the Pacific Rim countries and their trading partners for years to come. In light of recent massive quakes in Haiti, Chile, and Mexico, Cascadia's Fault not only tells the story of this potentially devastating earthquake and the tsunamis it will spawn, it also warns us about an impending crisis almost unprecedented in modern history.
