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Reading Prong
The Reading Prong is a physiographic subprovince of the New England Uplands section of the New England province of the Appalachian Highlands. The prong consists of mountains made up of crystalline metamorphic rock. Location The Reading Prong stretches from near Reading, Pennsylvania, through the Lehigh Valley in eastern Pennsylvania Pennsylvania (; ( Pennsylvania Dutch: )), officially the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, is a state spanning the Mid-Atlantic, Northeastern, Appalachian, and Great Lakes regions of the United States. It borders Delaware to its southeast, ... northern New Jersey and into southern New York (state), New York. It reaches its northern terminus in Connecticut. In Pennsylvania, the Reading Prong is referred to as South Mountain (eastern Pennsylvania), South Mountain while in New Jersey and New York the mountains of the subprovince are referred to as the New York – New Jersey Highlands. Near the Hudson Valley, the term Hudson Highlands is often ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Physiographic
Physical geography (also known as physiography) is one of the three main branches of geography. Physical geography is the branch of natural science which deals with the processes and patterns in the natural environment such as the atmosphere, hydrosphere, biosphere, and geosphere. This focus is in contrast with the branch of human geography, which focuses on the built environment, and technical geography, which focuses on using, studying, and creating tools to obtain,analyze, interpret, and understand spatial information. The three branches have significant overlap, however. Sub-branches Physical geography can be divided into several branches or related fields, as follows: * Geomorphology is concerned with understanding the surface of the Earth and the processes by which it is shaped, both at the present as well as in the past. Geomorphology as a field has several sub-fields that deal with the specific landforms of various environments e.g. desert geomorphology and fluvial ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Hudson Highlands
The Hudson Highlands are mountains on both sides of the Hudson River in New York state lying primarily in Putnam County on its east bank and Orange County on its west. They continue somewhat to the south in Westchester County and Rockland County, respectively. North to south they fall between Newburgh Bay and Haverstraw Bay, the latter forming the northern region of the New York - New Jersey Highlands. The Hudson River enters this region in the south at Dunderberg Mountain near Stony Point, and from the north in the vicinity of Breakneck Ridge and Storm King Mountain near Cornwall, New York. These highlands have played a significant role in America's environmental, cultural, and military history. Geology The bedrock of the Highlands is part of the Reading Prong and more than a billion years old, formed during the Grenville Orogeny. It represents the very core of the Appalachian range, which has been formed by successive mountain-building events ( orogenies). The present mou ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Radon
Radon is a chemical element with the symbol Rn and atomic number 86. It is a radioactive, colourless, odourless, tasteless noble gas. It occurs naturally in minute quantities as an intermediate step in the normal radioactive decay chains through which thorium and uranium slowly decay into various short-lived radioactive elements and lead. Radon itself is the immediate decay product of radium. Its most stable isotope, 222Rn, has a half-life of only 3.8 days, making it one of the rarest elements. Since thorium and uranium are two of the most common radioactive elements on Earth, while also having three isotopes with half-lives on the order of several billion years, radon will be present on Earth long into the future despite its short half-life. The decay of radon produces many other short-lived nuclides, known as "radon daughters", ending at stable isotopes of lead. [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Uranium
Uranium is a chemical element with the symbol U and atomic number 92. It is a silvery-grey metal in the actinide series of the periodic table. A uranium atom has 92 protons and 92 electrons, of which 6 are valence electrons. Uranium is weakly radioactive because all isotopes of uranium are unstable; the half-lives of its naturally occurring isotopes range between 159,200 years and 4.5 billion years. The most common isotopes in natural uranium are uranium-238 (which has 146 neutrons and accounts for over 99% of uranium on Earth) and uranium-235 (which has 143 neutrons). Uranium has the highest atomic weight of the primordially occurring elements. Its density is about 70% higher than that of lead, and slightly lower than that of gold or tungsten. It occurs naturally in low concentrations of a few parts per million in soil, rock and water, and is commercially extracted from uranium-bearing minerals such as uraninite. In nature, uranium is found as uranium-238 (99. ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Piedmont (United States)
The Piedmont is a plateau region located in the Eastern United States. It is situated between the Atlantic coastal plain and the main Appalachian Mountains, stretching from New York in the north to central Alabama in the south. The Piedmont Province is a physiographic province of the larger Appalachian division which consists of the Gettysburg-Newark Lowlands, the Piedmont Upland and the Piedmont Lowlands sections. The Atlantic Seaboard fall line marks the Piedmont's eastern boundary with the Coastal Plain. To the west, it is mostly bounded by the Blue Ridge Mountains, the easternmost range of the main Appalachians. The width of the Piedmont varies, being quite narrow above the Delaware River but nearly 300 miles (475 km) wide in North Carolina. The Piedmont's area is approximately . The French word ''Piedmont'' comes from the it, Piemonte, meaning " foothill", ultimately from Latin "pedemontium", meaning "at the foot of the mountains", similar to the name of the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Harrisburg, Pennsylvania
Harrisburg is the capital city of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, United States, and the county seat of Dauphin County. With a population of 50,135 as of the 2021 census, Harrisburg is the 9th largest city and 15th largest municipality in Pennsylvania. Harrisburg is situated on the east bank of the Susquehanna River. It is the larger principal city of the Harrisburg–Carlisle metropolitan statistical area, also known as the Susquehanna Valley, which had a population of 591,712 as of 2020, making it the fourth most populous metropolitan area in Pennsylvania after the Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, and Lehigh Valley metropolitan areas. Harrisburg played a role in American history during the Westward Migration, the American Civil War, and the Industrial Revolution. During part of the 19th century, the building of the Pennsylvania Canal and later the Pennsylvania Railroad allowed Harrisburg to develop into one of the most industrialized cities in the Northeastern United States. ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
South Mountain (Maryland And Pennsylvania)
South Mountain is the northern extension of the Blue Ridge Mountain range in Maryland and Pennsylvania. From the Potomac River near Knoxville, Maryland in the south to Dillsburg, Pennsylvania in York County, Pennsylvania in the north, the range separates the Hagerstown and Cumberland valleys from the Piedmont regions of the two states. The Appalachian National Scenic Trail follows the crest of the mountain through Maryland and a portion of Pennsylvania. Geography South Mountain begins at the Potomac River as a low, narrow ridge, barely one mile wide and only above sea level at its crest. South of the Potomac River in Virginia, the ridge continues as Short Hill Mountain for about before subsiding near the town of Hillsboro. South Mountain in Maryland gradually grows higher and wider towards the north. Near the Pennsylvania border, the mountain merges with the hills of the parallel Catoctin Mountain range to the east and becomes more like a low mountain range than a single cre ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Blue Ridge Mountains
The Blue Ridge Mountains are a physiographic province of the larger Appalachian Mountains range. The mountain range is located in the Eastern United States, and extends 550 miles southwest from southern Pennsylvania through Maryland, West Virginia, Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee, and Georgia. This province consists of northern and southern physiographic regions, which divide near the Roanoke River gap. To the west of the Blue Ridge, between it and the bulk of the Appalachians, lies the Great Appalachian Valley, bordered on the west by the Ridge and Valley province of the Appalachian range. The Blue Ridge Mountains are known for having a bluish color when seen from a distance. Trees put the "blue" in Blue Ridge, from the isoprene released into the atmosphere. This contributes to the characteristic haze on the mountains and their perceived color. Within the Blue Ridge province are two major national parks – the Shenandoah National Park in the northern secti ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Gneiss
Gneiss ( ) is a common and widely distributed type of metamorphic rock. It is formed by high-temperature and high-pressure metamorphic processes acting on formations composed of igneous or sedimentary rocks. Gneiss forms at higher temperatures and pressures than schist. Gneiss nearly always shows a banded texture characterized by alternating darker and lighter colored bands and without a distinct cleavage. Gneisses are common in the ancient crust of continental shields. Some of the oldest rocks on Earth are gneisses, such as the Acasta Gneiss. Description Orthogneiss from the Czech Republic In traditional English and North American usage, a gneiss is a coarse-grained metamorphic rock showing compositional banding (gneissic banding) but poorly developed schistosity and indistinct cleavage. In other words, it is a metamorphic rock composed of mineral grains easily seen with the unaided eye, which form obvious compositional layers, but which has only a weak tendency to fracture ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Precambrian
The Precambrian (or Pre-Cambrian, sometimes abbreviated pꞒ, or Cryptozoic) is the earliest part of Earth's history, set before the current Phanerozoic Eon. The Precambrian is so named because it preceded the Cambrian, the first period of the Phanerozoic Eon, which is named after Cambria, the Latinised name for Wales, where rocks from this age were first studied. The Precambrian accounts for 88% of the Earth's geologic time. The Precambrian is an informal unit of geologic time, subdivided into three eons ( Hadean, Archean, Proterozoic) of the geologic time scale. It spans from the formation of Earth about 4.6 billion years ago ( Ga) to the beginning of the Cambrian Period, about million years ago ( Ma), when hard-shelled creatures first appeared in abundance. Overview Relatively little is known about the Precambrian, despite it making up roughly seven-eighths of the Earth's history, and what is known has largely been discovered from the 1960s onwards. The Precambrian fossil ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Staten Island Serpentinite
The Staten Island Serpentinite locality is a southward extension of the New England Uplands, adjacent to the Manhattan Prong. It includes Todt Hill on Staten Island, which is the highest point along the Atlantic Seaboard south of Maine, at above sea level. "Todt" is a Dutch word meaning "dead." This hill perhaps received its name from the Dutch settlers because the hilltops overlooking The Narrows consisted of scattered treeless rocky exposures. The chemical character of the bedrock was, in part, the reason for this. Much of Staten Island is covered by the Harbor Hill moraine, the terminal moraine of the last Wisconsin Stage glacier. However, ledges of bedrock consisting of serpentinite are exposed throughout the upland areas on Staten Island. Grymes Hill, the second highest point on Staten Island and just a few miles from Todt Hill has similar bedrock characteristics. Serpentine, the dominant mineral in serpentinite, is rich in magnesium, an element that most plants cannot tolerate ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Manhattan Prong
The Manhattan Prong of the New England Uplands is a smaller belt of ancient rock in southern New York (including Manhattan, the Bronx, and segments of Brooklyn and Staten Island), parts of Westchester County, and upland portions of southwestern Connecticut. The Manhattan Prong and the Reading Prong are separated by the Newark Basin in the south, but the two features merge at the northern terminus of the Newark Basin in the vicinity of Peekskill, New York. A band of mountains that rise nearly one thousand feet along the northwestern margin of the Newark Basin in New York and New Jersey are called the Ramapo Mountains. Another belt of ancient metamorphic and igneous rock crops out along the southern margin of the Newark Basin south and west of Trenton, New Jersey. In this region the rocks are referred to as part of the Trenton Prong. This region includes Manhattan schist and Tuckahoe marble Tuckahoe marble (also known as Inwood and Westchester marble) is a type of marble found in sou ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
