Transcript Acadia National Park

Acadia National Park
Mark Martell, Candi Santiago,
Mike Robar
Park Features
• 47,000 acre preservation including granite
mountains, woodlands, ocean shoreline, lakes,
ponds, and an abundance of plants and animals
• Located on coast of Maine called Mount Desert
Island
• Cadillac Mountain - 1,530 Ft. Highest point on
Atlantic Coast
• There are 45 miles of dirt roads and 115 miles to hike
or mountain bike that range from easy to difficult
• They also have 20 miles of paved roads for driving the
scenic views
Park Features
• They also have many activities at the park which
include:
•Bird walks
•Boat cruises
•Evening slide programs
•Stargazing
•Short talks
•Nature walks, that are
available from late May
to mid-October.
•Fishing
•Boating
•Carriage rides
•During the winter,
the carriage roads
and the closed
portions of the Park
Loop Road are
ideal for crosscountry skiing and
snowshoeing.
History
•
Deep shell heaps indicate American Indian encampments dating back
6,000 years in Acadia National Park
• The first written descriptions of Maine coast Indians, recorded 100
years after European trade contacts began, describe American Indians
who lived off the land by hunting, fishing, collecting shellfish, and
gathering plants and berries
• The first written descriptions of Maine coast Indians, recorded 100
years after European trade contacts began, describe American Indians
who lived off the land by hunting, fishing, collecting shellfish, and
gathering plants and berries
History
• George B. Dorr, the park’s first
superintendent, devoted 43 years of his life,
energy, and family fortune to preserving the
Acadia landscape
• Dorr and many others helped Acadia
become the first national park established
east of the Mississippi.
Geological History
• 420 to 370 million years ago when Pangaea was being
formed different tectonic plates were moving together.
• The Catskill Delta is being subducted underneath the
Avalon Terrane (New England). This is when Acadia
National Park formed.
• Geologists have named this activity the Acadian Orogeny
• Orogeny means the folding, faulting, and uplift of the
earth’s crust to form mountain ranges, often accompanied
by volcanic and seismic activity.
Acadia’s Rock Units
• Ellsworth Schist.
• This type of metamorphic rock was formed by,
accumulated sedimentary layers of marine and volcanic
Debris in the Ordovician Period.
• In the late Ordovician and early Silurian Periods the
sedimentary layers were deformed, compressed, and
metamorphosed, forming the rocks now presently known
in Acadia as
• This rock, which is very thick and compressed of mostly
mica schist and dense gneiss, is usually only found at the
north end of the park.
Ellsworth Schist
Cranberry Island Series
• It is also a little more complex as to how this series was
formed. It mainly started when hot lava and more sediment
covered the Ellsworth Schist and a first deformation
occurred. Deformation is merely stress and strain on rocks
that cause them to change there shape.
• Then, mild uplift metamorphism and erosion
metamorphosed the sediments into the true Cranberry
Series.
• Today on Acadia, the Cranberry Series is identified by
rocks with pyroclasts, and brecciated fragments
Cranberry Island
Bar Harbor Series
• This metamorphic rock comes from sediments of sand, silt, and gravel
overlain by a shallow sea.
• This is an early Devonian deposition that metamorphosed under a
time of great heat and pressure. Today it is seen overlying the
Cranberry Series and Ellsworth Schist, and is broken into
shingled pieces on the beaches.
• One interesting fact that is unique of the Bar Harbor series is that large
quantities of diorite, which is just a dark colored, granite textured rock
that contains little quartz, penetrated the Bar Harbor series causing
sills and dikes to form throughout the series. These sills and dike can
be up to one hundred feet thick and up to
fifty feet wide respectively.
Bar Harbor Series
Dikes