Also they spread so far that they were broken when Pangaea, the first landmass, split apart. The other half is the Scottish Highlands. They are older than the Atlantic Ocean between them.

Big deal, Americans do the same every day!

You must be fun at parties

No, like for real. People getting excited about what they do is the best.

As a non-geologist living next to Lake Diefenbaker (the reservoir formed by damming the South Saskatchewan River), I also like geological history.

I have a standard reply for when I'm asked why we chose to move to this "treeless wasteland". "I look out at the flat horizon and see how the glaciers planed the earth the way a woodworker flattens a board. I look around me at the river breaks and see how the meltwater from retreating glaciers carved the earth away into shapes that defy imagination." I don't know accurate any of that is, but it fits my mental model of what I was taught in high school.

(What we call the river breaks are twisted and braided networks of coulees, some with sides so steep as to require mountaineering equipment. Most still run with meltwater in the spring.)

I have started daydreaming of a career change to geology. There are just so many unanswered questions and its not like space or physics were these questions are tinyor super far away. You can just walk upto a geologic puzzle and hit it with a hammer.

They are also only half of the original mountain range, which was split when pangaea split apart.

The other half is now resting across europe, I think along the northern range.

This is because thats basically the upper limit for how tall a mountain can be on this planet.

Never thought about the song that way...

Wow.

We worship the Old Gods in them there hills.

https://www.oldgodsofappalachia.com/

What we see now are the ancient roots. Before the continental colision, there was a sea and subduction zone. This gave us sandstones, diorite, and granite... All of which were crushed at incredible pressure and temperature by the continental collision. At the deep roots of the mountains, this transformed the rock into gneiss, marble, and other extremely hard rock. Additionally, the forces were so great that the very bottom melted and became fresh granite.

All of these stones are very hard and resistant to erosion, and are what we see todayas the Appalachians

I think they were as tall as the Alps are now - because the crust essentially "floats" on the mantle as mountains are eroded (and glaciers slide off), the land gradually rises

Das rite.