Acadia National Park

1. Acadia National Park Mark Martell, Candi Santiago, Mike Robar

2. Park Features • 47,000 acre preservation including granite mountains, woodlands, ocean shoreline, lakes, ponds, and an abundance of plants and animals • Located on coast of Maine called Mount Desert Island • Cadillac Mountain - 1,530 Ft. Highest point on Atlantic Coast • There are 45 miles of dirt roads and 115 miles to hike or mountain bike that range from easy to difficult • They also have 20 miles of paved roads for driving the scenic views

3. Park Features • Bird walks • Boat cruises • Evening slide programs • Stargazing • Short talks • Nature walks, that are available from late May to mid-October. • Fishing • Boating • Carriage rides • They also have many activities at the park which include: • During the winter, the carriage roads and the closed portions of the Park Loop Road are ideal for cross-country skiing and snowshoeing.

4. History • Deep shell heaps indicate American Indian encampments dating back 6,000 years in Acadia National Park • The first written descriptions of Maine coast Indians, recorded 100 years after European trade contacts began, describe American Indians who lived off the land by hunting, fishing, collecting shellfish, and gathering plants and berries • The first written descriptions of Maine coast Indians, recorded 100 years after European trade contacts began, describe American Indians who lived off the land by hunting, fishing, collecting shellfish, and gathering plants and berries

5. History • George B. Dorr, the park’s first superintendent, devoted 43 years of his life, energy, and family fortune to preserving the Acadia landscape • Dorr and many others helped Acadia become the first national park established east of the Mississippi.

7. Geological History • 420 to 370 million years ago when Pangaea was being formed different tectonic plates were moving together. • The Catskill Delta is being subducted underneath the Avalon Terrane (New England). This is when Acadia National Park formed. • Geologists have named this activity the Acadian Orogeny • Orogeny means the folding, faulting, and uplift of the earth’s crust to form mountain ranges, often accompanied by volcanic and seismic activity.

8. Acadia’s Rock Units • Ellsworth Schist. • This type of metamorphic rock was formed by, accumulated sedimentary layers of marine and volcanic Debris in the Ordovician Period. • In the late Ordovician and early Silurian Periods the sedimentary layers were deformed, compressed, and metamorphosed, forming the rocks now presently known in Acadia as • This rock, which is very thick and compressed of mostly mica schist and dense gneiss, is usually only found at the north end of the park.

9. Ellsworth Schist

10. Cranberry Island Series • It is also a little more complex as to how this series was formed. It mainly started when hot lava and more sediment covered the Ellsworth Schist and a first deformation occurred. Deformation is merely stress and strain on rocks that cause them to change there shape. • Then, mild uplift metamorphism and erosion metamorphosed the sediments into the true Cranberry Series. • Today on Acadia, the Cranberry Series is identified by rocks with pyroclasts, and brecciated fragments

11. Cranberry Island

12. Bar Harbor Series • This metamorphic rock comes from sediments of sand, silt, and gravel overlain by a shallow sea. • This is an early Devonian deposition that metamorphosed under a time of great heat and pressure. Today it is seen overlying the Cranberry Series and Ellsworth Schist, and is broken into shingled pieces on the beaches. • One interesting fact that is unique of the Bar Harbor series is that large quantities of diorite, which is just a dark colored, granite textured rock that contains little quartz, penetrated the Bar Harbor series causing sills and dikes to form throughout the series. These sills and dike can be up to one hundred feet thick and up to fifty feet wide respectively.

13. Dikes Bar Harbor Series