| Hanging Hills |
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| CATEGORIES ABOUT HANGING HILLS | |
| meriden, connecticut | |
| new haven county, connecticut | |
| landforms of connecticut | |
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The cap rock of the Hanging Hills escarpment is the massive Early Jurassic Holyoke Basalt which is nearly 700 feet thick. The exposures along the ridge tops display an irregular polygonal columnar jointing pattern that formed as the massive volcanic surface flows gradually cooled. Most of these fractures are tightly cemented by minerals that formed long after the flows were buried by younger sediments. The tell-tale grooves and scratches from rocks embedded in the bottom of the glacier are still visible in patches on the barren bedrock along the cliff tops. The Early Jurassic Shuttle Mountain Formation (red beds) and the Talcott Basalt crops out along the forested hillsides at the base of the ridge. In the Meriden region, numerous northeast-trending normal faults offset the volcanic flows and intervening Sedimentary rocks. Several of these faults break the Metacomet Ridge north of Meriden. Stream erosion and glacial ice carved canyons along these faults, dividing the ridge into the finger-like promontories of the Hanging Hills (West Peak, East Peak, South Mountain, and Cathole Mountain, west-to-east respectively.). Merimere Reservoir was built in the fault-controlled valley between East Peak and South Mountain. |
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