# Is this meme true (age of the Appalachian Mountains) **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [September 23, 2022, 9:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-this-meme-true-age-of-the-appalachian-mountains/972100 "2022-09-23T21:26:41Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 14\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Elmer\_J.Fudd](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/elmer_j.fudd/32/1211_2.png) [@Elmer\_J.Fudd](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elmer_J.Fudd)\ **Post date:** [September 24, 2022, 6:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-this-meme-true-age-of-the-appalachian-mountains/972100/21 "2022-09-24T18:28:21Z")
It just means not _all_ of the range is 400 million+ years old. The parts with the coal are younger. - The Appalachian coalfields were formed from swamps that, 310 million years ago, covered the region. Some quarter of a billon years ago, tectonic forces thrust the region upward to form a plateau, which has been since shaped mainly by erosion. Accordingly, it is a land of waterways. Its place-names reflect this: Alum Lick, Barren Creek, Frozen Run, Left Hand, Stone Branch.\* [The Violent Remaking of Appalachia - The Atlantic](https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2016/03/the-violent-remaking-of-appalachia/474603/) ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [September 24, 2022, 6:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-this-meme-true-age-of-the-appalachian-mountains/972100/22 "2022-09-24T18:41:28Z")
Even today, the places where coal is being formed, or at least proto-coal, aren’t forests, but bogs. Give those peat bogs another few million years, and they’d be coal. ---
**Author:** ![Tarataratara](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/f4b2a3/32.png) [@Tarataratara](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tarataratara)\ **Post date:** [September 24, 2022, 6:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-this-meme-true-age-of-the-appalachian-mountains/972100/23 "2022-09-24T18:43:58Z")
Is it true that the Appalachian Mountains used to be joined with the Scottish Highland Mountains before the continents divided? I seem to have heard that somewhere, but now I can’t find a cite. ---
**Author:** ![Northern\_Piper](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/northern_piper/32/5304_2.png) [@Northern\_Piper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Northern_Piper)\ **Post date:** [September 24, 2022, 6:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-this-meme-true-age-of-the-appalachian-mountains/972100/24 "2022-09-24T18:49:42Z")
Yes, that’s mentioned in the link from @k9bfriender , up above. And also the mountains in northern Africa. ---
**Author:** ![Ludovic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/7ab992/32.png) [@Ludovic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ludovic)\ **Post date:** [September 24, 2022, 6:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-this-meme-true-age-of-the-appalachian-mountains/972100/25 "2022-09-24T18:54:33Z")
They were also once connected to the Ouachita Mountains across the Mississippi near the Ozarks. It is thought that a hotspot heated up the mountains between them, causing them to expand and thus erode quicker, but then the hotspot moved on and the already-eroded land sank even further, forming the Mississippi Embayment. ---
**Author:** ![MrDibble](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mrdibble/32/114_2.png) [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)\ **Post date:** [September 25, 2022, 5:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-this-meme-true-age-of-the-appalachian-mountains/972100/26 "2022-09-25T17:37:07Z")
> [@chela](#): > > What’s older than the Appalachian range? Lots of places are older - there are several locales of Archæan age, the Canadian Shield gneiss exposures are the oldest (although [that’s a tricky assessment](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oldest_dated_rocks#Earth's_oldest_rock_formation)). [This is the oldest](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isua_Greenstone_Belt) large area we know of, and [this is the second oldest](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barberton_Greenstone_Belt) (been there). ---
**Author:** ![bump](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/7c8e57/32.png) [@bump](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bump)\ **Post date:** [September 25, 2022, 6:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-this-meme-true-age-of-the-appalachian-mountains/972100/27 "2022-09-25T18:40:48Z")
And IIRC, also to the Atlas Mountains in Morocco, the Marathon moutains in the Big Bend in Texas, and the mountains in Scotland as well. At one point they were all part of an ancient Pangaean mountain range, but over the intervening 480 million years, plate tectonics has pulled them far apart, or erosion/deposition has obscured the connecting mountains. ---
**Author:** ![Hypno-Toad](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/b2d939/32.png) [@Hypno-Toad](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hypno-Toad)\ **Post date:** [September 25, 2022, 8:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-this-meme-true-age-of-the-appalachian-mountains/972100/28 "2022-09-25T20:35:52Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > Even today, the places where coal is being formed, or at least proto-coal, aren’t forests, but bogs. Give those peat bogs another few million years, and they’d be coal. I’ve read somewhere that coal will never again be produced on the same scale as in the carboniferous. For a long time after the appearance of true wood, there were no organisms yet evolved that could digest it. So trees and other woody plants just piled up in massive quantities and became coal. Is this true? ---
**Author:** ![Pardel-Lux](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pardel-lux/32/20182_2.png) [@Pardel-Lux](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pardel-Lux)\ **Post date:** [September 25, 2022, 8:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-this-meme-true-age-of-the-appalachian-mountains/972100/29 "2022-09-25T20:59:36Z")
They are older than tress, not ferns, horsetails, scrambling plants… > [@Hypno-Toad](#): > > So trees and other woody plants just piled up in massive quantities and became coal. Is this true? Not really [trees](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carboniferous#Plants): > [Early Carboniferous](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mississippian_age) land plants, some of which were [preserved](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Permineralisation) in [coal balls](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coal_ball), were very similar to those of the preceding Late [Devonian](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Devonian), but new groups also appeared at this time. The main Early Carboniferous plants were the [Equisetales](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Equisetales) (horse-tails), [Sphenophyllales](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sphenophyllales) (scrambling plants), [Lycopodiales](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lycopodiales) (club mosses), [Lepidodendrales](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lepidodendrales) (scale trees), [Filicales](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Filicales) (ferns), [Medullosales](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medullosales) (informally included in the “[seed ferns](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pteridospermatophyta)”, an assemblage of a number of early [gymnosperm](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gymnosperm) groups) and the [Cordaitales](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cordaitales). These continued to dominate throughout the period, but during [late Carboniferous](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pennsylvanian_(geology)), several other groups, [Cycadophyta](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cycadophyta) (cycads), the [Callistophytales](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Callistophytales) (another group of “seed ferns”), and the [Voltziales](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voltziales) (related to and sometimes included under the [conifers](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conifers)), appeared. OK, conifers are trees. _Late_ Carboniferous. No flowers at all. ---
**Author:** ![Exapno\_Mapcase](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/exapno_mapcase/32/1051_2.png) [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)\ **Post date:** [September 25, 2022, 9:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-this-meme-true-age-of-the-appalachian-mountains/972100/30 "2022-09-25T21:01:40Z")
A study just published in _Science_ postulates that one of Saturn’s moons disintegrated about 100 million years ago, after slowing drifting in. > **[Destruction of Saturn’s Former Moon May Explain Planet’s Tilt and Young Rings](https://www.aaas.org/news/destruction-saturns-former-moon-may-explain-planets-tilt-and-young-rings)** > > The study also details how Saturn and the nearby planet Neptune may have once been gravitationally linked. ---
**Author:** ![MrDibble](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mrdibble/32/114_2.png) [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)\ **Post date:** [September 26, 2022, 6:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-this-meme-true-age-of-the-appalachian-mountains/972100/31 "2022-09-26T06:22:46Z")
Like Pardel-lux said, mostly _not_ woody plants. Overwhelmingly tree ferns, horsetails and club mosses and the like account for the Carboniferous peak of coal deposition. I don’t doubt that inability to digest newly-evolved materials accounts for _some_ of the peak, but the other factors, like higher CO2 fuelling growth, higher O2 feeding fires, the greater prevalence of wetlands. the Pangaean topography creating very wet climate zones… it all adds up. ---
**Author:** ![Napier](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/ce73a5/32.png) [@Napier](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Napier)\ **Post date:** [September 26, 2022, 10:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-this-meme-true-age-of-the-appalachian-mountains/972100/32 "2022-09-26T10:38:55Z")
The “should be regarded with pure terror” part doesn’t sound true. Having hiked up some of them, I think “informed apprehension” is more accurate. ---
**Author:** ![control-z](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/eada6e/32.png) [@control-z](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/control-z)\ **Post date:** [September 27, 2022, 7:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-this-meme-true-age-of-the-appalachian-mountains/972100/33 "2022-09-27T19:36:58Z")
Yeah I don’t understand the terror part unless someone’s mind boggles at how old the mountains are. They aren’t really scary when you’re near/on/under them. ---
**Author:** ![Marvin\_the\_Martian](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/marvin_the_martian/32/2898_2.png) [@Marvin\_the\_Martian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Marvin_the_Martian)\ **Post date:** [September 27, 2022, 9:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-this-meme-true-age-of-the-appalachian-mountains/972100/34 "2022-09-27T21:09:27Z")
Well if you start hearing banjo music… [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-this-meme-true-age-of-the-appalachian-mountains/972100.md?page=1)