The melting ice produced enormous rivers of melting water which created impressive erosional forms and most likely the current state of the gorge was formed by such a river. Some 8,000 years ago the cold phase ended and the climate became warmer, the current warm phase started. It also planed the underground, but the granite was very resistant and not greatly changed. The glacier brought rocks from north in its slow flow to the south. The whole area was covered by an ice shield which was up to one mile (1.6 km) thick, during the last cold phase.
The walls consist of granite, but on the floor of the gorge you many see remnants of the main basalt dike, a black and fine-grained rock Those basalt filled planar structures in the rock are called dikes by the geologists.Įrosion of the surface continued and the granite was exposed, with its basaltic dikes.Īs the dikes are much less resistant to weathering than the hard granite, they were eroded and form those exceptional straight gorges. The magma cooled very slowly because it was stuck in a mushroom like form deep below the surface and isolated by the surrounding rock, and the result is granite.Įrosion of the surface continued, and when another intrusion of magma occurred, it forced its path through cracks in the granite.Īs those cracks were rather narrow, with cold granite on both sides, the magma cooled much faster and formed a vertical sheet of basalt. The rocks of the gorge are granite, a volcanic intrusion named Conway granite, which was formed 200 million years ago during the Jurassic. The strange thing is that it is almost straight, not meandering like a normal gorge. It is a straight cleft which is 244 m long, up to 6 m wide, and up to 28 m deep. Please check rates and details directly with the companies in question if you need more recent info.ĭiscovered accidentally by 93-year-old “Aunt” Jess Guernsey while fishing.Ī heavy rainstorm swept the hanging boulder from its place.įlume Gorge or The Flume is a strange geologic site, and while it is listed as a gorge and has a river running through, it is actually a really special gorge. Adults USD 16, Children (6-12) USD 14, Children (0-5) free.įranconia Notch State Park, 9 Franconia Notch Parkway, Franconia, NH 03580, Tel: +1-60, Fax: +1-60Īs far as we know this information was accurate when it was published (see years in brackets), but may have changed since then.
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