The geology of

Prince Edward Island Prince Edward Island (PEI; ) is one of the thirteen provinces and territories of Canada. It is the smallest province in terms of land area and population, but the most densely populated. The island has several nicknames: "Garden of the Gulf", ...

formed as a result of strike-slip extension in the mountains formed by the

Taconic orogeny The Taconic orogeny was a mountain building period that ended 440 million years ago and affected most of modern-day New England. A great mountain chain formed from eastern Canada down through what is now the Piedmont of the East coast of the Unit ...

, Salinic orogeny and Acadian orogeny, which created an area of subsidence in the Gulf of St. Lawrence. The Maritime Rift resulted in the Magdalen Basin, which is actually a series of small basins surrounded the Gulf. In the

Permian The Permian ( ) is a geologic period and System (stratigraphy), stratigraphic system which spans 47 million years from the end of the Carboniferous Period million years ago (Mya), to the beginning of the Triassic Period 251.9 Mya. It is the last ...

coal swamps formed in these basins, resulting in Atlantic Canada's extensive coal deposits, while in some cases the swamps evaporated being replaced by

gypsum Gypsum is a soft sulfate mineral composed of calcium sulfate dihydrate, with the chemical formula . It is widely mined and is used as a fertilizer and as the main constituent in many forms of plaster, blackboard or sidewalk chalk, and drywal ...

evaporite. Up to 12 kilometers of late

Paleozoic The Paleozoic (or Palaeozoic) Era is the earliest of three geologic eras of the Phanerozoic Eon. The name ''Paleozoic'' ( ;) was coined by the British geologist Adam Sedgwick in 1838 by combining the Greek words ''palaiós'' (, "old") and ' ...

sediments filled the Maritime Rift as rivers transported sediments in from more distant highlands. The rock visible at the surface on Prince Edward Island is principally red sandstone and siltstone deposited during this period.

References

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