A Resource for Information on the Commonwealth's Geology
In Virginia the Appalachian Plateau province is not particularly ‘plateau-like’, rather the region is characterized by rugged topography and steep slopes. It is a well-dissected upland, and streams draining the region have a classic dendritic drainage pattern. The featured image of Buchanan County (and the surrounding areas of Kentucky and West Virginia) is a shaded relief map […]
This image illustrates part of the geological map of Highland County, Virginia in the Valley & Ridge province. Note the linear belts Paleozoic sedimentary rocks that are repeated by folding. From oldest to youngest these include O1 = lower Ordovician strata, O2 = upper Ordovician strata, S1 = Silurian strata, SD = Silurian-Devonian strata, D1 […]
When large quantities of magma intrude and solidify in the Earth’s crust they form bodies of intrusive igneous rock known as plutons. The featured image nicely illustrates the edge (geologic contact) of a granitic pluton in the Blue Ridge Mountains of central Virginia. The granite is part of the 706 ± 4 million year old […]