Avalon Mountain Collisions

Around 380 million years ago, during the Devonian Period, North America and Baltica collided. This collision created another mountain range located in the same place where the Grenville Mountains and Taconic Mountains were formed. The Acadian Orogeny happened on the northeastern side of North America. Like TIA and the Grenville Belt, there was another land piece between Proto-North America and Baltica. This land piece was called Avalon. Avalon was believed to have broke apart from Proto-Africa. When Baltica hit North America, the mountain range created when the Avalon and the Iapetus Ocean rocks got piled up was located in the northeast. The collision of the Northeastern part of North America and Baltica didn’t really affect the southern coast until part of Avalon called the Carolina Terrane hit the southern part. These collisions caused the rocks to be metamorphosed. North America and Baltica at this time were located near the equator and North America was moving …show more content…
The Lower Manlius is 410 MYA. These rocks only covered around 10% of the JBT cliff. The Lower Manlius Rocks were Gray with some scattered white. When we traveled down and up the cliff face, I noticed that this type of rock was coarse and fine grained, had well sorted, had arranged layers, and horizontal beds. These rocks were jagged, a lot of uneven small, tiny 2 cm layers. At this time, New York was flooded by the Appalachian Basin and groups of rocks were deposited in a shallow flat sea. The lack of mud says that land would have been higher. The Taconic Mountains eroded a lot. Both the Upper and Lower Manlius were built during when the Manlius limestone was located in an intertidal place. The mud cracks and ripple marks says that while the Lower Manlius Rock layer was being built, the land was a lagoon environment. At this time, there was more sea life. There were coral reef and mollusk fossils located in the manlius at this