What is the geological structure of North America?
North America can be divided into five physical regions: the mountainous west, the Great Plains, the Canadian Shield, the varied eastern region, and the Caribbean. Mexico and Central America’s western coast are connected to the mountainous west, while its lowlands and coastal plains extend into the eastern region.
Which is geologically the oldest part of North America?
The oldest part of North America is the Craton. The Craton makes up most of the North Eastern and Midwest regions of The United States as well as most of Canada and Greenland.
What is the oldest rock in North America?
The reddish, scrambled-looking Morton Gneiss is a popular stone for buildings and gravestones, and at 3524 million years of age it’s considered to be the oldest bedrock in the United States.
How old is North America?
Although its known geologic history spans almost 4 billion years, two ages stand out as turning points. The first was about 1.8 billion years ago, when several continental fragments coalesced to form the stable crust underlying the Canadian Shield and northern interior platform.
What is the geologic history of North America?
As these pieces of continent crashed together 300 million years ago, mountains continued to rise along what is now the East Coast. The Atlantic Ocean opened 200 million years ago, pushing North America westward. As the continent rifted away from the supercontinent Pangaea, it finally earned the name North America.
What are the rock types of North America?
The large map shows the varying age of bedrock underlying North America, while four smaller maps show the distribution of four principal types of rock: sedimentary, volcanic, plutonic and metamorphic . You can sometimes buy a copy from Amazon here.
What is the North American core region?
North American Craton. The stable core of the continent is the North American Craton. Much of it was also the core of an earlier supercontinent, Laurentia. The part of the craton where the basement rock is exposed is called the Canadian Shield .