Zoar Valley Of Western New York State

There was a recent tragedy in Zoar Valley, a scenic hiking area of far western New York State, but it got me thinking about how it fit into the compound posting on the geology blog, "All About The Appalachians".

Zoar Valley meets the beginning of what I have named the Humber Line, at a right angle. The southeastern beginning of the Humber Line is the valley in which the town of Boston, NY is located. How is it possible for two valleys to form at right angles to one another? It is explained by my scenario of the tectonic collision which formed the mountains and ridge systems of the Appalachians. The two valleys meet at the town of Springville.

The sliding tectonic collision between what was then Africa and what was then North America formed the Appalachians. The fact that the collision was gradual and sliding, rather than direct, is what explains the ridge systems of the Appalachians. The direction of the collision shifted from northwestward to northward as the collision front approached the Canadian Shield, which is the dense layer of rock that underlies the eastern half of Canada.

The ridges and mountains of the Appalachians undergo a gradual curve, the "focal point" of this curve is the city of Harrisburg in Pennsylvania. As the collision thrust changed direction along the curve, from northwestward to northward, friction between the two land masses came into play. What was then Africa pulled some of the rock strata of what was then North America along with it.

But when the collision thrust was just northward, friction ceased to be a major factor and the force of the collision simply pushed the land of what was then North America northward.

This is why we see two valleys at right angles, some distance to the north of the mountains and ridges of the Appalachians. Zoar Valley, which runs parallel to the Appalachians, was formed by the frictional element of the tectonic collision as the change in the collision front pulled the land to the north to the east. Zoar Valley abruptly ends, and the Humber Line proceeds north at a right angle to the Zoar Valley at the westernmost limit of the land that was pushed to the north with the direct force of the tectonic collision.

For more about natural history discoveries in this area, which involves the sliding tectonic collision that created the Appalachian Mountains, see the posting "Niagara Natural History Summary", June 2019.

http://www.markmeeksideas.blogspot.com/2019/06/niagara-natural-history-summary.html?m=0