Adirondack Marble Geology

Brief regional geology in the adirondack mountains of new york the adirondack lowlands domain contains sequences of shallow water carbonates evaporites and talc schists upper marble formation sitting on the popple hill gneiss that includes metamorphosed slates mudstones sandstones and volcanogenic sequences.

Adirondack marble geology.

Folded marble and calcsilicate east of speculator. Geology of the adirondack park the adirondack dome the adirondack mountains are very different in shape and content from other mountain systems. They mainly consist of metasedimentary rocks chiefly marbles and gneisses. Amphibolite with porphyroblasts of k feldspar locally prominent in northwest adirondacks.

Unlike elongated ranges like the rockies and the appalachians the adirondacks form a circular dome 160 miles wide and 1 mile high. Algonquin peak seen from the south meadows lake plain in north elba 4 october 2015. South meadows lake was a temporary meltwater lake formed during the closing stages of wisconsin glaciation the last of the four main glaciations of the pleistocene ice age epoch. It is composed primarily of the mineral calcite caco 3 and usually contains other minerals such as clay minerals micas quartz pyrite iron oxides and graphite.

Commonly with subordinate leucogranitic gneiss biotite quartz plagioclase gneiss other metasedimentary rocks amphibolite migmatite. Other adirondack rocks were formed from emerging magma molten rock squeezed up through existing sedimentary and metamorphic rock by the friction of sliding rocks up down and sideways. Bedrock geology of the adirondack region the current topography of the adirondacks is related to doming which began about 180 million years ago when the atlantic ocean opened. Marble is a metamorphic rock that forms when limestone is subjected to the heat and pressure of metamorphism.

Geology of the adirondack mountains cont 2 adirondack lowlands the adirondacks lowlands are separated from the highlands by the ccmz to the southeast and from the frontenac terrane new york and ontario by the black lake shear zone to the northwest. The protoliths of these metamorphic rocks were more or less impure limestone and dolostone deposited as shelf sediments in the trans adirondack basin. Although the reason s for this doming remain to be fully elucidated. The molten rock cooled and crystallized to form igneous rocks such as granite and anorthosite.

Because of its limestone origin it has provided a natural buffering agent to the lake protecting it from the effects of acid deposition. Calcsilicate and granite south of tupper lake.