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Ellis Abel Learns.

In my own words · McDowell County, NC

Why I love the earth

Pale rock outcroppings breaking through prairie grass in Big Cypress National Preserve. Real USGS photograph used on the Ellis Abel Learns "Why I Love Geology" page — read by families in McDowell County, NC.
Pale rock outcroppings breaking through prairie grass in Big Cypress National Preserve. Tracy Enright, U.S. Geological Survey · Public domain
  • The ground is a stack of stories.
  • The bottom layer is the oldest one.
  • This whole place used to be somewhere else.

You can love the earth in McDowell County.

What it really is

Geology reads the earth's layers to find out what happened and when.

Three things to try today

  1. Find a cut hillside or road cut and count the layers.
  2. Say which one is oldest.
  3. Look for the layer that is bent or broken.
A USGS scientist stands against a folded, strongly deformed rock face on Divide Mountain, Alaska, examining the layers up close. Real USGS photograph used on the Ellis Abel Learns "Why I Love Geology" page — read by families in McDowell County, NC.
A USGS scientist stands against a folded, strongly deformed rock face on Divide Mountain, Alaska, examining the layers up close. Jamey Jones, USGS · Public domain

For the grown-up reading this

McDowell County is one of 100 counties in North Carolina. Interest comes first and skill comes second, in that order, always. This page is for the first part.

Superposition — oldest on the bottom — is a four-year-old idea that runs the whole field.

If the kid who loves this is a girl

Read what one popular teacher said to one little girl who took out the classroom trash without being asked — and what that girl did with the rest of her life.

Girls are great at math — McDowell County, NC →

Love something else too

Cylindrical rock cores laid out in trays at the USGS Core Research Center, showing bands of different rock layers. Real USGS photograph used on the Ellis Abel Learns "Why I Love Rocks" page — read by families in McDowell County, NC.Why I love rocksThree orange lava fountains jet more than 100 feet above the fissure 8 cone during the 2018 Kilauea eruption. Real USGS photograph used on the Ellis Abel Learns "Why I Love Volcanoes" page — read by families in McDowell County, NC.Why I love volcanoesA jagged crack running across desert ground with a yellow tape measure stretched over it, marking surface rupture from the 2019 Searles Valley earthquake. Real USGS photograph used on the Ellis Abel Learns "Why I Love Earthquakes" page — read by families in McDowell County, NC.Why I love earthquakesHundreds of dinosaur bones still embedded in the tilted rock wall inside the Dinosaur Quarry building at Dinosaur National Monument. Real USGS photograph used on the Ellis Abel Learns "Why I Love Fossils" page — read by families in McDowell County, NC.Why I love fossilsThe historic quarry building at Dinosaur National Monument, built over steeply tilted Jurassic rock layers that hold a dinosaur bone bed. Real USGS photograph used on the Ellis Abel Learns "Why I Love Dinosaurs" page — read by families in McDowell County, NC.Why I love dinosaursHurricane Juliette photographed from the Terra satellite as a huge white spiral of cloud with a clear eye at its centre. Real NASA photograph used on the Ellis Abel Learns "Why I Love Weather" page — read by families in McDowell County, NC.Why I love weatherThe branching channels of the Godavari River delta meeting the Bay of Bengal, photographed by the crew of space shuttle Endeavour. Real NASA photograph used on the Ellis Abel Learns "Why I Love Rivers" page — read by families in McDowell County, NC.Why I love riversThe dark ragged skyline of a Douglas fir forest at Point Reyes, California, silhouetted against a pale grey sky. Real USGS photograph used on the Ellis Abel Learns "Why I Love Forests" page — read by families in McDowell County, NC.Why I love forests

Near McDowell County

Why I love the earth, everywhere in the US · All things to love · STEM jobs you could do · Summer camps in McDowell County