October 3, 2017. (Click image for high-resolution view.)
A geologist’s dream, Gros Morne National Park is among the couple of locations where you can set foot on the Earth’s mantle without digging an inch.
Beneath Earth’s crust lies 2,900 kilometers (1,800 miles) of thick mineral and rock called the mantle. Famous and fanciful literature aside, no human is most likely to go to the mantle or deep interior of Earth. But at Gros Morne National Park, individuals can step on pieces of the mantle without needing to dig an inch.
On October 3, 2017, the Operational Land Imager (OLI) on Landsat 8 gotten natural-color images of Gros Morne National Park. The UNESCO World Heritage website covers 1,800 square kilometers (690 square miles) in the Great Northern Peninsula of western Newfoundland. An in-depth view of the Tablelands, in the southern part of the park, is listed below.
Gros Morne supplies a few of the world’s finest exhibitions of the procedure of plate tectonics. The park includes a part of the Long Range Mountains, a subrange of the Canadian Appalachians that goes back to around 1.2 billion years back, when contemporary North America hit another continent. Those mountains have actually given that deteriorated and left the gneiss and granite peaks of the Long Range. The park includes a few of the highest peaks of the Long Range mountains, consisting of Big Level and Gros Morne Mountain (French for “great somber”).
October 3, 2017
The Tablelands, situated on the south end of the park, are thought about among its most striking functions. The flat-topped, rust-colored land is abundant with peridotite rock from the upper part of Earth’s mantle. The rock was thrust towards the surface area around 500 million years ago through a procedure called subduction. When 2 plates on Earth’s crust clash, one is frequently pressed back (subducted) towards the mantle. Standing out amidst the lavish green park, the yellowish-red Tablelands played an important function in verifying the theory of plate tectonics.
The Canadian Space Agency has actually likewise studied the location to help in the look for life beyond Earth. Scientists research study how tiny life kinds can endure in the iron-rich Tablelands to much better comprehend how they may endure on the severe environment on Mars.
Gros Morne National Park likewise includes some current geologic history at the Western Brook Pond. The freshwater fjord was sculpted by advancing glaciers 10s of countless years back throughout the most current glacial epoch. After the glaciers melted and declined, the land rebounded and cut off the outlet from the sea. Saltwater was gradually and naturally flushed from the 30-kilometer (20-mile) long pond. Today, the fjord is surrounded by high rock walls as much as 600 meters (2,000 feet) high and includes almost pure fresh water. The setting is a preferred for professional photographers.
Today, the park is safeguarded by the Canada National Parks Act. One of the most significant natural dangers to the park is a big moose population, which is 5 to 20 times greater here than in other parts of Canada. Introduced into the location about 100 years back, the starving population has actually penetrated big parts of the boreal forest and prevented regrowth.
NASA Earth Observatory images by Lauren Dauphin, utilizing Landsat information from the U.S. Geological Survey.
