EVERYDAY SCIENCE

Detailed explanation-1: -The folding and fault is the result of the action of plate tectonics. The Blue Ridge, or Appalachian Mountains were formed in the remote past by collision of two continental plate crusts.

Detailed explanation-2: -The Blue Ridge Province has hard igneous and metamorphic rocks that we uplifted along the edge of North America as the continents collided. The Valley and Ridge Province is composed of sedimentary layers of the ancient continental margin that were folded and faulted during the collision.

Detailed explanation-3: -Compression also happened in NC when North America and Africa collided together, thus crunching and folding the continental crust. This compressional stress formed the Appalachian Mountains, of which the Blue Ridge is part.

Detailed explanation-4: -The Blue Ridge, part of the Appalachian range, was created by the uplifting of the Earth’s tectonic plates 1.1 billion to 250 million years ago. At over 1 billion years of age, the Blue Ridge Mountains are among the oldest in the world, second only to South Africa’s Barberton greenstone belt.

Detailed explanation-5: -The mountains are made of highly deformed metamorphic rocks of largely Precambrian ages. These include schists, gneisses, slates, and quartzites, and are extensively intruded by igneous bodies.