The Great Valley of Virginia as Place and Time: A Focal Point for Trans-Atlantic and American Geoheritage

Abstract

The Great Valley of Virginia (GVV) is a section of a much larger geologic structure which spans from the northeastern US through the Mid-Atlantic and to the southeast. While the structural formation of the region represents nearly 1.2 billion years of geologic history, the rocks that remain record vast cycles of tectonic change. The legacy of that geology is a rich and aesthetically attractive region that has drawn many peoples over time to its agricultural fertility and geologic resources. This contribution traces the geologic development of the GVV, the relationship of the GVV to the peoples, both indigenous and European colonizers, that inhabited it over thousands of years, and the geologic resources that they found. Although relatively under-expressed from a geoheritage perspective, the GVV possesses a rich legacy of how its resources supported each society's needs and interests, and the role that the geologic environment of the GVV played at critical moments in the historical development of the US over the last 400 years. Supplementary material at https://doi.org/10.6084/m9.figshare.c.7047725