Friday, August 27, 2010

Ever Had A Magmatic Flare-up?

I did once at a Taco Bell. But Mother Earth did

about 30 million years ago, during an episode geologists call a “magmatic flare-up.” During this time, an oceanic plate that had been sliding underneath North America broke apart, exposing the bottom of the North American continental plate to hot mantle rocks. This heating created new pockets of magma, and eventually bodies of granite — called plutons — across the American West.”

and it resulted in granite climbing areas in Idaho, Utah and Arizona. 10 things you didn’t know about granite here.

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