West Virginia is a state of great natural beauty, but few people realize the violent forces that create the beautiful mountainous landscape which we all love.

The Appalachian mountain range, roughly 480 million years old, was caused by several events of tectonic plate collision that ultimately sat at the center of Pangea, a single super continent that comprised all land on Earth.
Wikipedia/Valerius Tygart
The area that became known as the Appalachians was once flat and was periodically comprised of shallow seas. These areas were eventually uplifted by the collision of two tectonic plates, which also caused massive volcanic eruptions.
Flickr/Don Sniegowski

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During the Paleozoic Era, rock layers of sandstone and limestone were folded by constant uplift, creating the landscape that we see today. This was a process that was repeated over the 250 million years that followed, as plates collided again and again, causing the mountains to continually fold and rise, spewing up mounds of lava and magma.
Wikipedia/MrSparkle17
Then about 220 million years ago, Pangea began to break up, and the activity that created the mountains ended and the Appalchians began to erode. Because of this, the mountains have lost their peaks, becoming round and hill like.
PublicDomainPictures
As we look at the Appalachians today, we are seeing the remnants of a violent and active past, which is now calm and serene.

To learn more about the formation of the Appalachian mountains, check out the USGS website here.

Are you familiar with how the Appalachians were created? What other interesting facts about the mountains do you know? Feel free to comment below and join the discussion.

Would you like to learn more about West Virginia’s past? Check out these amazing facts about West Virginia before it even became a state.

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