Early History
The early history of Massachusetts can be traced to over around 1.2 to 1.1 billion years ago. Ancient rocks made up of cratons, ancient nuclei of continents and microcontinents begin being found in the geologic record. The ancient continent that was formed, Rodinia, was a byproduct of these collisions. Worldwide, mountains were being formed in the Grenville orogeny. Some of the rocks of the Berkshire highlands are from this era.
Around 750 million years ago, Rodinia began to break up and the Laurentian craton was formed. Two hundred million years later, Gondwana was formed. Laurentia increased in size because of the addition of Japan-sized islands. It is possible that the Merrimack, Nashoba, Avalon, and Meguma terranes that make up eastern Massachusetts are remnants of these island arcs or microcontinents. It is highly likely that these terranes broke off from Gondwana at some point in their history and collided with Laurentia, between 550 and 370 million years ago. These resulting collisions were part of the Taconic orogeny.The Iapetus Ocean, separating the two continents began to open up when Rodinia broke apart. The size of the ocean eventually prevented migrations between the two landmasses.
Between 425 and 370 million years ago, the two continents began to collide, forming Pangea. During this time, the Acadian orogeny, which marked the collision of the two continents, occurred. Around 200 million years ago, Pangea began to break apart. This caused rift valleys to form within the interior of the continent. One of these rift valleys, the Connecticut River Valley is a failed rift of the continent. Basalt dikes present in the underlying rocks of the valleys are the result of volcanism.
Read more about this topic: Geology Of Massachusetts
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