Conclusion
To anyone who has had the patience to read through the preceding pages and to reach these concluding remarks, it must be obvious that geology is not merely a pastime for specialists. It does not take half a dozen college and university degrees to collect rocks and minerals, and to understand what they mean; or to appreciate not alone the beauty, but also the long and involved, yet logical, origin of scenery; or to comprehend from a rock-cut or cliff the vast changes which have occurred in the course of geologic time; or to grasp the current significance, as well as the historical importance, of such rock and mineral products as the trap, the limestone, the pyrite, the lead veins, the soapstone, the varved clay, the gravel banks.
Whether one’s interests are practical, historical, acquisitive, esthetic, philosophical or scientific, the geological features of the Connecticut Valley possess the variety to gratify them all. One must indeed be blind if he cannot find something of interest—a hobby—even a profession in the geological display spread before him in central Massachusetts. Let it not be thought that this little volume tells the whole story. On the contrary, its authors expect to have a difficult time justifying their sins of omission, more particularly because many of the omissions have been conscious and deliberate. But they trust they have left for the reader a wealth of features which he can make his own by right of discovery. For it will not take him very long to penetrate the fourth dimension of geologic time more deeply and intimately than is possible in the pages of a book.
Footnotes
[1]The figures denote the distance in miles from the starting point to the feature
mentioned.
General Index
“P” indicates plate following page number indicated
A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z
- A
- Agglomerate, 22 P, 24, 36, 72, 84
- Albite, 109
- Albite granite, 116
- Allanite, 88, 110
- Alluvial fans, Triassic, 19, 28, 43, 46
- Alluvial plain, 3, 21
- Alluvial wash, 25, 43
- Amphibole, 110
- Appalachian disturbance, 42
- Argillite, Leyden, 64
- Arkose, 114
- Arkose, “first” sandstone, 86
- Ash, volcanic, 28, 66, 71
- Augite, 110
- Autunite, 110
- Azurite, 64
- B
- Bank, undercut, 2
- Barite, 30, 63, 108
- Basalt, 72, 115
- Basalt, columns, 71
- Basin, Triassic, 27, 43
- Batholith, 32
- Beaches, sloping south, 49
- Bedrock, depth, 10
- Biotite, 109
- Block mountains, 25
- Boulders, striated, 21
- Brickyards, 4, 69
- C
- Calcite, 64, 108
- Calendar beds, 69
- Cambrian, 37, 38
- Canyon, Little Westfield River, 61
- Carboniferous period, 33, 42
- Carboniferous swamps, 34, 42
- Caves, Sunderland, 55
- Chalcopyrite, 64, 108
- Channel scars, 79
- Chicopee shale, 18
- Chlorite, 110
- Cinder cone, 25
- Cirque, 10
- Clay, 4
- Clay beds, 69
- Clay, distorted, 6, 66 P, 70
- Clay stones, concretions, 70
- Clays, banded, 4, 6
- Clays, record climate, 69
- Climate, Triassic, 23
- Coal, 33
- Coal basin, 34, 42
- Coal swamps, Carboniferous, 33, 40
- Coal, Triassic, 22
- Coherent rock, effect, 12
- Columns, basaltic, 60
- Concretions, 70
- Conglomerate, 20, 25, 28, 54, 56, 99, 113
- Conglomerate, boulder, 21
- Conglomerate, Devonian, 35
- Conglomerate, Mt. Toby, 54
- Conglomerate, Triassic, 19, 21
- Contact, conglomerate with crystallines, 59
- Crater, 25
- Cretaceous period, 17, 46
- Cretaceous sediments, 16
- Crops, 7
- Cut-banks, 11
- D
- Delta, 7, 8, 49
- Delta, Deerfield River, 58, 95
- Delta, Florence, 89
- Delta, glacial lakes, 49, 69
- Delta, Long Plain Brook, 98
- Delta, Millers River, 58
- Delta, Sawmill River, 99
- Delta, Westfield River, 62
- Desert climate, Triassic, 46
- Devonian, 39
- Diabase, 62, 115
- Dike, 32, 32 P, 42
- Dinosaur habits, 67
- Dinosaur tracks, 22, 22 P, 66, 66 P, 81, 96
- Dinosaurs, 18, 46
- Dinosaurs, bipedal, 67
- Disturbance, Appalachian, 42
- Disturbance, Shickshock, 40
- Disturbance, Taconic, 40
- Drainage, Atlantic, 15, 47
- Drumlin, South Amherst, 9, 84
- Dunes, 4, 49, 56, 87, 98
- E
- Earthquakes, ancient, 19, 26
- Eastern Upland, 32, 33, 37
- Entrenched valleys, 12
- Eocene period, 46
- Erratics, 8, 82, 89
- Everlasting hills, 11
- F
- Fans, alluvial, 19
- Fault, buried, 24
- Fault, eastern border, 19, 25
- Fault fissure, 66
- Faulting, at Notch, 73, 75
- Fault movement, 25, 26, 60
- Faults, Turners Falls, 44
- Fish, extinction of Triassic, 68
- Fish fossils, Durham, Conn., 22
- Fish fossils, Sunderland, Mass., 22, 68
- Fish, living conditions, 68
- Fish, Triassic, 22
- Fish, Whittemore’s Ferry, 69
- Flood level, 1936, 82, 96, 97
- Floodplain, 3, 4, 79
- Floods, 1, 3, 4, 6
- Floor, Triassic basin, 30
- Folds, 34, 36, 40, 42
- Footprint localities, 66, 68
- Footprints, dinosaur, 22, 22 P, 67, 84
- Fore-set beds, 8
- Forests, oldest, 40
- G
- Galena, 20, 30, 63, 108
- Garnet, 111
- Glacier, 8, 9, 21, 42, 46
- Glacier recession, 9, 49
- Glacier slope, 48
- Glaciers, Permian age, 42
- Gneiss, 28, 118
- Gneiss, horizontal, 97
- Gneiss, Pelham, 79
- Gorge, Cold River, 92
- Gorge, Deerfield River, 56, 92, 92 P
- Gorge, Little Westfield, 105
- Gorges, buried, 10
- Gorges, Pliocene age, 48
- Grade of rivers, 15
- Granite, 21, 28, 33, 34, 42, 54, 116
- Granite, pre-Triassic, 100
- Granite quarry, 88
- Granodiorite, 116
- Granodiorite porphyry, 116
- Granodiorite, Williamsburg, 64
- Graywacke, 114
- I
- Ice Age, 10, 48, 56
- Icebergs, 8
- Ice-cakes, 8
- Ice dispersal centers, 48
- Ice recession, rate, 49
- Ice sheet, 5, 9, 52, 72
- Ice thickness, 48
- Indian campsites, 3
- Indian graves, 3
- Intrusive, 33
- Inundation, 3
- Iron ore, 34, 35
- L
- Labradorite, 110
- Lake Bascom, 93
- Lake beds, 22
- Lake deposits, Triassic, 55
- Lake Hadley, 5, 49, 52, 70
- Lake Hadley, glacial bed, 59, 79
- Lake, ice margin, 82
- Lake shore, Amherst, 79
- Lake shore, old, 7
- Lake shore, slope of, 7, 49
- Lake Springfield, 5, 49, 103
- Lake Springfield, antiquity, 70
- Lake Springfield, frozen, 70
- Lakes, post-glacial, 49
- Lakes, Triassic, 46, 56, 68, 101
- Landslide deposits, 46
- Landslide, Triassic, 56
- Landslides, ancient, 19, 21
- Lava, amygdaloidal, 104
- Lava, columnar, 32 P, 60, 60 P, 71
- Lava, Deerfield flow, 101
- Lava field, 72
- Lava flow, 25, 26, 28, 43, 44, 48, 60
- Lava, Holyoke flow, 26, 44, 81, 85
- Lava, pillow type, 96
- Lava, “second,” 85
- Lead veins, 30, 63, 65
- Limestone, 35, 40, 114
- Limestone, Bernardston, 40
- Limestone, Cambrian, 38
- Limestone, Devonian, 34, 35
- Limonite, 111
- Longmeadow sandstone, 18
- Lowland, excavated, 13
- Lowland, Miocene age, 55
- Lowland relief, 53
- M
- Malachite, 64
- Marble, 118
- Marble, Westfield, 61, 105
- Maturity, 14
- Meander, 3, 62
- Meander scarps, 56, 57, 104
- Meander scarps, Sunderland, 57
- Meanders, Westfield River, 62
- Microcline, 109
- Microcline granite, 117
- Mine, West Farms, 64
- Mineral, definition, 106
- Minerals, genetic classification, 107
- Minerals, metamorphic, 111
- Minerals, pegmatite, 109
- Minerals, sedimentary, 111
- Minerals, soil, 111
- Minerals, vein, 63, 107
- Mine shaft, 64
- Miocene, 11, 14, 30, 55
- Miocene lowland, 14
- Monadnocks, 12 P, 55
- Moraine, terminal, 8, 48
- Mountain, eastern block, 19, 28
- Mountain, exhumed, 48, 100
- Mountain, Triassic, 21, 54
- Mt. Warner rocks, 87
- Muscovite, 109
- N
- Natural levee, 2, 3
- New England landscape, 15
- New England peneplain, 12 P, 15, 45, 74, 92 P
- New England upland, 51, 55, 90, 94
- New England upland, monadnocks, 55
- Notch, 25
- Notch, origin, 44, 74
- Notch quarry, 84
- O
- Olivine, 110
- Ophicalcite, 118
- Orchard land, 8
- Ordovician, 36, 33, 39
- Ox-bow, 3
- Ox-bow Lake, 4 P, 82
- P
- Paleozoic era, 42
- Pegmatite, 28, 32, 82
- Peneplain, erosional plain, 46
- Peneplain, New England, 12 P, 15, 45, 74
- Peridotite, 36, 38, 115
- Piedmont plains, 40
- Piracy by Farmington River, 47
- Pitchblende, 110
- Plains, lacustrine, 49
- Plankton, Cambro-Ordovician, 36
- Plants, Triassic, 22
- Plateau-like upland, 11
- Playa, 21, 22, 23, 46, 68
- Pliocene, 10, 11
- Pliocene uplift, 48
- Providence basin, 33
- Pyrite, 64, 108
- Pyromorphite, 64
- Q
- Quarry, Westfield Marble, 61, 62
- Quartz, 30, 63, 107
- Quartz porphyry, 116
- Quartzite, Cheshire, 93
- Quartzite conglomerate, 35
- R
- Raindrop imprints, 22
- Recession of Atlantic, Pliocene, 48
- Recession of ice, 9
- Red rock basin, 18
- Reeds, 67
- Rift movement, 43, 44
- Rift, Triassic, 43, 44
- Ripple-marks, 22, 69
- Roches moutonnées, 4 P, 9, 10
- Rock-benches, 15
- Rock, definition, 106
- Rock, extrusive, 32 P
- Rock, history recorded, 112
- Rock, igneous, 114
- Rock, intrusive, 32 P
- Rock, metamorphic, 117
- Rock mosaic, 17
- Rock, sedimentary, 113
- Rock, story of igneous, 114
- Rock, story of metamorphic, 117
- Rock, story of sedimentary, 113
- Rock varieties, 106
- S
- Salt crystals, casts, 67
- Sand bar, 1
- Sand dunes, 4
- Sandstone, 71
- Sandstone, Longmeadow, 83
- Sandstone, “second,” 85
- Sandstone, Silurian, 39
- “Scallops,” 4, 56
- Scallops, meander scarps, 56, 57
- Schist, 28, 117
- Schist, Conway, 95
- Schist, garnetiferous, 118
- Schist, Goshen, 89
- Schists, volcanic, 92
- Scour-channels, 1
- Screes, 43
- Sea, Cambrian, 36
- Sea, Devonian, 35
- Sea, Ordovician, 36
- Sediments, Devonian, 24
- Serpentine, 110, 118
- Shale, 21, 22, 55, 68, 114
- Shale, Chicopee, 18
- Sheets, intrusive, 42, 62
- Shickshock disturbance, 40
- Shore, Lake Springfield, 80
- Siderite, 64
- Sill, 32
- Silt, 3, 4, 21
- Slate, 35, 36, 117
- Slickensides, 66
- Snowfields, Triassic, 21
- Soapstone, 118
- Soapstone, uses, 119
- Sphalerite, 63, 108
- Spodumene, 109
- Springs, hot, 30
- St. Lawrence drainage, 15, 47
- Stock, 32
- Stone fences, 9, 52, 80
- Strath, 14, 15, 16, 47, 58, 92 P, 93
- Striations, 9
- Swales, 1, 98
- Swamps, 40
- T
- Taconic disturbance, 40
- Talc, 111
- Talus, 46
- Terminal moraine, 8, 49
- Terraced surface, 17
- Terraces, 4, 7, 49, 79, 98, 104
- Terraces, floodplain, 87
- Terraces, meander cut, 95
- Tertiary period, 16
- Till, 8, 10
- Top-set beds, 8
- Torbernite, 110
- Tourmaline, 109
- Tracks, dinosaur, 66
- Trail, Holyoke Range, 84
- Triassic, 42
- Triassic basin, filled, 13
- Tuff, 25, 36, 81, 84
- Tuff, Granby, 22 P, 25, 85