The map could have applications from educating tourists to helping prospectors find gold and communities prepare for landslides.
A geologist who has studied Southeast Alaska’s rocks and minerals for decades is creating a new geologic map of the region. That map could have a wide range of applications — from educating tourists, to helping prospectors find gold, to helping communities prepare for landslides.
“Sometimes we have big groups of students with us, sometimes I’m out with just a colleague and another professor or two,” he said. “Sometimes, I’ve been by myself with my dog — and then she’s the geo-assistant for me!” Gehrels said Petersburg was right smack in the path of that snowplow about 100 million years ago, getting crammed up against another piece of the continent at a speed of about five centimeters per year — or, about as fast as your fingernails and hair can grow. That means Petersburg is part of the critical boundary where land was deposited onto the west coast of North America. Gehrels said all that movement and metamorphosis produced some pretty cool rocks.
Gehrels said the continental “Crunch Zone” produced some of the other rocks that characterize Central Southeast — there’s lots of sparkly schist and stripey gneiss and coarse quartzite.
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