Imagine two 1979 Lincoln sedans careening toward each other at breakneck speed. As these behemoths collide, their hoods crumple in a cacophony of steel-on-steel grating—now more accordion than automobile. Fluids spurt and hiss forth, seeping through previously nonexistent cracks and crevices. The immense heat and pressure fuse the mangled chassis into a mountainous amalgam of metal.

Fittingly, Lincoln’s premier 1979 model was named the Continental.

Like the head-on impact of two Continentals, collisions between continents also leave a mark. Or, as in the case of New England, enough marks to chronicle the landscape’s evolution from ancient past to the present day. Throughout the region, vast swaths of prehistoric earth exist—remnants of 30,000-foot mountains, massive lava flows, and Amazonian river networks. These marvels didn’t disappear overnight, rather on a timescale that makes the Pantheon seem like it was built yesterday.

Geologic processes occur at a sloth’s pace compared to the light-speed tempo of our society. A human life lasts 80 years; the age of the Earth spans 4.58 billion. In a world where seconds count, such a sprawling time period sounds fantastical. But to the discerning eye that fantasy becomes reality. New England’s enduring geologic marvels inimitably wed past and present, and at three spectacular examples—Kaaterskill Falls in New York, Franconia Ridge in New Hampshire, and the Connecticut River Valley—visitors can stride across eons in hours.

Kaaterskill Falls, NY

In the Catskill Mountains, roiling Kaaterskill Falls plummets 260 feet and 40 million years. As it races downward, New York’s tallest cascade streaks past a sheer cliff face that reveals the cyclical breakdown and buildup of prehistoric New England. The story begins in an ancient river delta on the bottom of the ocean 360–400 million years ago.

Four hundred million years ago, mountains blanketed present- day New England. As time ate them away, they decayed into fine sediments like mud and clay. A prodigous river system then transported this debris to the ocean, where the river’s flow slowed to a lackadaisical pace like a sprinter after the finish line. The sediments dropped out of the waters, forming horizontal sheets of decomposed mountain on the ocean floor.

After millions of years buried under innumerable tons of water and a growing mass of overlying sediment, intense pressure caused the deeper layers to lithify, or cement together, as sedimentary rock. The buried remains of long-departed organisms were entombed as well, fossils that today abound in Kaaterskill's cliffs.

Then ocean floor became mountaintop. As sediments accrued to depths of 6,000 feet or more, they filled in the ocean fringes like too many pennies in a wishing well. Near the end of a drawn-out orogeny—the geologist’s term for mountainbuilding events—these sandstone and shale bands were uplifted, forming the roots of today’s Catskill Mountains and, after the most recent ice age, Kaaterskill Falls’ precipitous cliffs.

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