NoLL
Our recent visits to Valcour and Burton Islands made me think. On the western shores of Lake Champlain, all the rock appears to be limestone. Only 10 miles away on the eastern shores, Burton Island appears to be made of slate and sandstone layers of sedimentary rock. That made me wonder if the geology of the Adirondacks and the Green Mountains are substantially different and if the Champlain valley could have been a plate boundary.
 |
| Bedrock of sandstone layered on shale on Burton Island |
 |
| Limestone bedrock palisades on Valcour Island |
I tried searching for that in the library's reference section. I didn't find much there. Then I went to the lazy man's research tool -- Wikepedia. What I found there was (1) that the Green Mountains are 100 million years younger than the Adirondacks. (2) That both are considered part of the Appalacians. (3) The were formed when the Iapetus plate subducted under the North American plate. (4) The mountain building process is called The Taconic Orogeny which does allow for diverse regions to be slid in close proximity (see the picture.)
So, what did I prove? Nothing. True scholarship requires much deeper digging than this. Instead, as a thoroughly modern Internet addicted person, I dug just deep enough to satisfy my curiosity. I can walk away with the smug satisfaction that my speculative theory could be correct. I think it's true when the sociologists say that the Internet gives us broader but shallower access to information compared to prior methods.
Posts
But think of how long it would take to even find a book with the graphics you could copy with pencil just 60 years ago.
ReplyDeleteI think the depth is there as well, since I can find doctoral theses on just about anything from anywhere, not just in the library at a decent school where the research was conducted.
I have access to experts on nearly antique GMC motor homes. I wouldn't even know their names if it hadn't been for the Internet.