Stretching approximately 2,000 miles from the southern states above Florida up into parts of Newfoundland, the Appalachian Mountains are culturally, ecologically, and geologically rich. Although they’re named after the Native American Apalachee people, the geologic history of the Appalachians goes even further back. The hills were growing and changing long before the first hunter-gatherer groups inhabited the area 16,000 years ago. These mountains are part of an even larger belt as far as northernmost Norway and Greenland and have undergone numerous tectonic events. In this talk we will explore the tectonic making of the Appalachian Mountains, from their origins over a billion years ago to their modern post Ice Age setting.
Jerry Burgess joined the Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences as the Director of the Environmental Science and Studies Program. He received his doctorate at Hopkins and MS in Geology at the University of Maryland. His research is highly interdisciplinary, ranging from geology to exploring serpentine ecology community dynamics. Current research interests center around using petrologic and geochemical tools to investigate igneous and metamorphic rock histories, with a focus on petrogenesis and the growth and evolution of the Appalachians.