CompuServe Messages

>> I dimly remember something about some seafloor-rock trapped in the Appalachians. If there are pre-Carbonifereous fossils east of the Appalachians, I expect them to match African counterparts better than other N. American. << In general, yes. There are purported to be some seafloor rocks exposed along the edges of the Bronson Hill Volcanics (thought to be remains of an off shore island arc) in New Hampshire, and the Taconic mountains of New York, VT, MA appear to be a chunk of Cambrian Seafloor thrust faulted over the Ordovician-Cambrian rocks of the ("Appalachians" – actually the Green mountains) and into place west of them. The Green Mtns are somewhat folded, but unlike the Appalachians to the South, there has been massive and repeated thrust faulting, so they are more stacked than folded. The fossil faunas of Eastern Newfoundland, the Maritimes, the Boston Basin and the basin (whose name eludes me) in Southern Massachusetts and Rhode Island are European-African as are faunas found in Windows in the Carolina Slate Belt. (The rocks east of there are Mesozoic/Cenozoic marine and continental deposits with North American faunas). A good section in SouthEast Newfoundland reveals European trilobite faunas in the same sequence in which they are found in Europe whereas Cambrian rocks in Western Newfoundland have North American faunas. And yes, the Adirondacks appear to be a local uplift unrelated(?) to the Appalachian chain.