What type of aquifers are more common in the Piedmont and Blue Ridge of Georgia?
crystalline-rock aquifers
The crystalline-rock aquifers that underlie the Piedmont and Blue Ridge physiographic provinces in east-central Alabama, northwestern Georgia, and western South Carolina (fig.
What type of rocks are found in the Piedmont region of Virginia?
Located in the central part of the state, the Piedmont province has a bedrock of folded and faulted metamorphic and igneous rocks. The only sedimentary rocks found in this area are located in its Triassic basins. Diabase, granite, gneiss, marble, and schist are among the rocks found in the Piedmont province.
How did the Piedmont Plateau form?
This mountain system is the result of tectonic activity that took place during the Paleozoic era, between 543 and 245 million years ago. Since that time, the mountains have been continuously eroding, and their deep roots slowly rising in compensation as the overlying rocks are removed.
How is saprolite formed?
Saprolites form in high rainfall regions which result in chemical weathering and are characterised by distinct decomposition of the parent rock’s mineralogy.
What are the aquifers in Georgia?
There are several aquifers that are important for Georgia. Above the Fall Line, the primary aquifer is the crystalline rock Piedmont and Blue Ridge aquifer. Between the Fall Line and the coast, there are three principal aquifers, the Southeastern Coastal Plain Aquifer, the Floridan Aquifer and the Surficial Aquifer.
Does Georgia have an aquifer?
Groundwater Resources The surficial aquifer system is present in each of the five physiographic provinces in Georgia. In the Coastal Plain Province, the surficial aquifer system consists of layered sand, clay, and in some places limestone.
What fossils have been found in Piedmont?
The most common fossils are fishes, plant remains, and the footprints (trace fossils) of reptiles and amphibians. Plant remains can be particularly abundant in these rift valley sediments and include a variety of foliage (leaf) types, such as ferns, cycadeoids, ginkgoes, and conifers.
What landforms are in the Piedmont?
The Piedmont zone of the North American continent is a varied plateau set between a number of mountain ranges. Notable landforms in the area include monadnocks like Georgia’s Stone Mountain, the Palisades on the Hudson River, and the Fall Line that defined trade and European settlement in the region.
What are the landforms in the Piedmont region?
A piedmont is an area at the base of a mountain or mountain range. The word piedmont comes from the Italian words pied and monte, which mean “foot” and “hill.” Piedmont lakes and piedmont glaciers, for example, are simply lakes and glaciers located at the foot, or base, of mountains.
What are three features of the Piedmont region?
Located north of the Fall Line, this region is characterized by rolling hills, shallow valleys, and red clay soil. A unique feature of the area is the presence of monadnocks, or granite rock outcrops, such as Stone Mountain, Panola Mountain, and Arabia Mountain.
What type of rock is saprolite?
Saprolite means soft, thoroughly decomposed and porous rock, often rich in clay, formed by the in-place chemical weathering of igneous, metamorphic, or sedimentary rocks.
What is saprolite material?
Saprolite is isovolumetrically weathered bedrock that retains the structure and fabric of the parent rock. This soil parent material forms in areas where crystalline rocks occur at or near the surface of the earth. Saprolite is generally overlain by 1 to 3 m of soil and commonly > 10 m thick.
What type of rocks are found in the saprolite?
In the upper zones of the saprolite the halloysite is recrystallized into kaolinite which is the predominant clay-sized mineral in the soil. Over gabbro and metagabbro rocks, the lower zones of the saprolite contain appreciable quantities of smectite, vermiculite, and where chlorite is present, regularly interstratified chlorite-smectite.
What type of rocks are in the Piedmont region?
The bedrock of the Piedmont includes an array of Proterozoic to Paleozoic igneous and metamorphic rocks that form the deep core of the ancient Appalachian mountain belt. Some metamorphic rocks in the Piedmont were buried to depths of ~30 km and heated to over 700˚ C.
Is soil saprolite a good chromatographic column?
The soil-saprolite profile is not an ideal chromatographic column, though it may approach it if the ma- terial remains in place vertically and is undisturbed by horizontal transport. In this event, the severity of mineral weathering increases from the rock through the saprolite to the solum with no apparent discontinuities.
What happened to the metamorphic rocks in the Piedmont?
Some metamorphic rocks in the Piedmont were buried to depths of ~30 km and heated to over 700˚ C. Rocks exposed in the Piedmont experienced a complex geologic history.