What landscape regions do we find
in NYS?
What are the characteristics of the different landscapes?
Mountain• High elevations• Slope : steep• Mainly non-sedimentary rock• Structure:
– distorted rock structures • Faults• Folds
– Tilted rocks • Thin Soils
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Whiteface_Mountain_from_Lake_Placid_Airport.JPG
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/d/d8/Basin1.JPG
A mountaineer near the peak of Basin Mountain
Note:
Old mountains may be low in elevation and have little slope.
http://images.vrbo.com/vrbo/images/6a68f
Taconic Mountains
http://www.greenmtn.edu/gmcjournal/images/110705_geology_trip.jpg
http://images.vrbo.com/vrbo/images/6a68f
Plateau• Medium to high elevation• Slope: low• Rock type:
– sedimentary rocks – extrusive igneous lava flows
• Rock Structure: – (undistorted) horizontal layers– Extrusions
• Soil: Thin soil upland, deeper in valleys
http://www.nps.gov/archive/grca/photos/images/T505.jpg
http://www.catskill-3500-club.org/img/cal/catskill-fall-mountains-800x600.jpg
http://www.catskillcenter.org/vhikes/northlake_main.jpg
Catskill “Mountains”
Thomas Cole (American 1802–1848) Falls of Kaaterskill 1826
Oil on canvas 43 x 36 in Warner Collection, Tuscallosa, Alabama
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Asher_Durand_Kindred_Spirits.jpg
‘Kindred Spirits’
Dura Asher
http://www.blackbird.vcu.edu/v6n2/gallery/ravenal_j/images/4.jpg
Kaaterskill Falls in the eastern Catskills of New York.
A subject for painters of the Hudson River School and the inspiration for William Cullen Bryant’s poem, “Catterskill Falls.”
Midst greens and shades the Catterskill leaps,From cliffs where the wood-flower clings;All summer he moistens his verdant steeps,With the sweet light spray of the mountain-springs,And he shakes the woods on the mountain-side,When they drip with the rains of autumn-tide.But when, in the forest bare and old,The blast of December calls,He builds, in the starlight clear and cold,A palace of ice where his torrent falls,With turret, and arch, and fretwork fair,And pillars blue as the summer air.
Note the even hilltops
http://www.setdancingnews.net/news/photos/onews37/_B038012.jpg
Metamorphic rock of Appalachian mountains on left, sedimentary rock of Allegheny Plateau on right
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/fa/Junction_fault_0112.jpg9
Fault
Plain
• Elevation: low • Slope: gentle • Rock type: any • Structure
– horizontal rock structure, unless it is a remnant of an old mountain region
• Soil: deep topsoil
Hempstead Plains
http://www.newyorknature.net/Hempstead_Plains_preserve_2.jpg
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CANADA