Excursion to Acadia National Park, Maine
10/14/2010
With brisk, clear October days perfect for field work, Dr. Vollmer took a group of students to Acadia National Park on Mount Desert Island, Maine over the Columbus Day break with the assistance of Dr. Bartholomew. The Park lies on Avalonia, a volcanic arc terrane which was accreted to North America during the Paleozoic Acadian Orogeny. The trip gives students the opportunity to study spectacular plutonic exposures and intrusive relationships, as well as a variety of metamorphic, glacial and surficial features. Photographs by F. Vollmer, except as indicated.
The first stop is at Cape Neddick in southern Maine where students study a layered mafic intrusion associated with a Mesozoic hot spot track.
Studying shore exposures of the "shatter zone", an intrusive breccia associated with the emplacement of the Silurian Cadillac Mountain pluton. Photograph by A. Bartholomew.
Lunch on the outcrop. On Saturday we studied two outcrops before breakfast, had lunch here on shoreline outcrops, and finished the day with headlamps on the last outcrop. The hard work was rewarded by a fine dinner including mussels, chowder and lobster.
Scaling the Beehive, a Roche moutonnée formed during the Pleistocene glaciation.
Group shot (minus four) on the Beehive summit.
Sunday afternoon we visited the Maine Granite Industry Historical Society (http://www.mainegraniteindustry.org/), where Steven Haynes gave us a demonstration of historical granite mining techniques. The students split this granite block using only a hammer and a line of pins and steel sleeves.
