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25.1: Introduction

  • Page ID
    22793
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    In the late Ordovician period of geologic time, subduction pulled a volcanic island arc and ancestral North America (Laurentia) together. The result was an extensive mountain belt that produced a large amount of eroded sediments. Both the resulting sedimentary rocks and the metamorphic and igneous rocks that formed at the roots of the mountain belt are used by geoscientists today to examine this episode of mountain-building, known as the Taconian (“Taconic”*) Orogeny.

    Figure \(\PageIndex{1}\): Earth as it appeared in the late Ordovician period of geologic time. Find ancestral North America (“Laurentia”) and note the mountain belt along its southern edge. This is the Taconian Mountain Belt. This dynamic visualization was created by Ian Webster using tectonic and paleogeographic maps by C.R. Scotese’s PALEOMAP Project, and is embedded here with permission. Grab it and spin it around! Zoom in and out! Explore!

    This page titled 25.1: Introduction is shared under a CC BY-NC 4.0 license and was authored, remixed, and/or curated by Callan Bentley, Karen Layou, Russ Kohrs, Shelley Jaye, Matt Affolter, and Brian Ricketts (VIVA, the Virginia Library Consortium) via source content that was edited to the style and standards of the LibreTexts platform.