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