Our Physical Geology Class Rocks!
05/14/2008
Our introductory geology class Physical Geology involves students in active learning about the Earth and it's Environment. This course satisfies a General Education requirement and is the first required course in the Geology and Environmental Geoscience majors. For many students one course is never enough - they go on to become Geology majors!
At High Falls students learn about the use of water power formerly used to grind flour and to make cement, and, currently, to produce electricity. Note the old millstone hewn from Shawangunk 'grit'. They also study the ancient history of Paleozoic sedimentation and tectonic deformation
Photo by S.C. Ligotino
An anticline in the High Falls shale tells it's story by giving students evidence for the Acadian mountain building event that occurred in the Devonian. At that time Himalayan size peaks rose from the collision of the ancient supercontinents Gondwana and Laurasia. The erosional debris from these long eroded masses now forms what are called the 'Catskill Mountains'
Photo by S.C. Ligotino
Stepping back through time into the depths of the deep Ordovician sea that existed here almost a half billion years ago, students learn to reconstruct the history of the Earth and it's paleoenvironments by studying present outcrops and geologic processes
Photo by S.C. Ligotino
