DUKE GEOLOGICAL LABORATORY
GEOLOGICAL TIME CHART
(with selected major geologic events from southeastern New York and vicinity)
ERA |
||
Periods (Epochs) |
Years (Ma) |
Selected Major Events |
| CENOZOIC | ||
| Holocene | 0.1 | Rising sea forms Hudson Estuary, Long Island Sound, Great South Bay, other bays and harbors on Long Island. |
| Barrier islands form and migrate landward as sea level rises. | ||
| Pleistocene | 1.6 | Melting of last glaciers forms large lakes. |
| Drainage from Great Lakes overflows into Mohawk River and Hudson Valley. | ||
| Dam at The Narrows suddenly breached and flood waters erode Hudson shelf valley to form Hudson Canyon. | ||
| Protracted continental glaciation with five? glaciers flowing from NW and NE to form moraine ridges and superposed glacial drift deposits in New Jersey, New York, Connecticut, and Long Island. | ||
| Pliocene | 6.2 | Regional uplift, tilting and erosion of Cretaceous coastal-plain strata; sea level drops. |
| Depression eroded that later becomes Long Island Sound. | ||
| Miocene | 26.2 | Sediment fans spread E and SE from Appalachians to extend coastal plain and push back sea. |
| Last widespread marine unit appears in coastal-plain strata. | ||
MESOZOIC |
65 |
|
| Cretaceous | 96 | Passive eastern margin of North American plate subsides and sediments of the the coastal-plain strata accumulate to 18,000'. [Passive-margin sequence II] |
| Jurassic | 190 | Baltimore Canyon Trough forms and fills with 8,000 feet of sediment as Atlantic Ocean starts to open. |
| Newark basins deformed, arched, eroded. | ||
| 200 | Continued sediment filling of subsiding Newark basins along with mafic igneous activity both extrusive and intrusive. | |
| Triassic | Newark basins form and fill with red river flood plain and channel sediments. | |
PALEOZOIC |
245 | |
| Permian | Extensive pre-Newark erosion surface formed. | |
| 260 | Appalachian orogeny. (Terminal stage.) Folding, overthrusting, and metamorphism of Rhode Island coal basins; granites intruded. | |
| Carboniferous | 320 | Faulting, folding, and retrograde metamorphism in New York City area. |
| Southeastern New York undergoes period of uplift and erosion. | ||
| Devonian | 365 | Acadian orogeny. Intrusive activity and metamorphism in New England infrastructure. Faulting, folding, and metamorphism in New York City area. Peekskill Granite and Acadian granites intruded in New York and New England. Deep burial of sedimentary strata in Appalachian Basin. |
| Silurian | Uplift, erosion and planation surface forms across Appalachian orogen. | |
| Ordovician | 440 | Taconic orogeny. Arc-continent collision. Intense deep-seated deformation and granulite-grade metamorphism in infrastructure. Overthrusts from ocean toward continent in supracrustal (external) parts of orogen. Taconian deep-water strata thrust above shallow-water strata. Ultramafic rocks (oceanic lithosphere) sliced off and transported above deposits of continental shelf. |
| 450 | Brookfield Series, Cortlandt Complex, Hodges Complex, and related rocks intrude across Taconian suture zone (Cameron's Line and related shear zones). | |
| Bathymetric reversal and development of deep-water Tippecanoe Sequence above beveled Sauk platform. | ||
| Cambrian | 510 | Shallow-water clastics and carbonates accumulate in west of basin (Sauk Sequence; protoliths of the Lowerre Quartzite, Inwood Marble, and part of the Manhattan Schist Formation = Walloomsac). Deep-water terrigenous silts form to the east. (Taconic Sequence; (Cambrian) protoliths of Hartland Formation and parts of Manhattan Schist Formation). [Passive-margin sequence I] |
| PROTEROZOIC | 544 | Period of uplift and erosion followed by subsidence of margin. |
Z |
Rifting with rift sediments, volcanism, and intrusive activity. | |
| Ned Mountain, Pound Ridge, and Yonkers gneiss protoliths | ||
Y |
~1000 | Grenville orogeny. Sediments and volcanics deposited, compressive deformation, intrusive activity, and granulite facies metamorphism. (Fordham Gneiss, Hudson Highlands and related rocks including Queens Tunnel Complex in New York City). |
ARCHEAN |
2600 | No record in New York City area. Some elements of western Adirondacks form. |
| 4400 | Oldest crustal rocks form in western Australia. | |
| 4600 | Solar system, Earth, and Moon form. | |
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