18-733: In the United States, the Manhattan Prong of the New England Uplands is a smaller belt of ancient rock in southern New York (including Manhattan , the Bronx , and segments of Brooklyn and Staten Island ), parts of Westchester County , and upland portions of southwestern Connecticut . The bedrock underlying much of Manhattan consists of three rock formations: Fordham gneiss , Manhattan schist , and Tuckahoe marble (Inwood marble) , which are well suited for
36-667: A southwest–northeast trending direction for nearly 225 kilometers (140 miles), from southeastern Pennsylvania near Reading to southwestern Connecticut near Danbury , where it joins the Taconic Mountains and Housatonic Highlands of the New England Uplands plateau. The Hudson River cuts a deep gorge through the Highlands in New York in the stretch of river between Peekskill on the south and Newburgh on
54-681: Is approximately 80,000 square miles (210,000 km ). The French word Piedmont comes from the Italian : Piemonte , meaning " foothill ", ultimately from Latin "pedemontium", meaning "at the foot of the mountains", similar to the name of the Italian region of Piedmont ( Piemonte ), abutting the Alps . The surface relief of the Piedmont is characterized by relatively low, rolling hills with heights above sea level between 200 feet (50 m) and 800 feet to 1,000 feet (250 m to 300 m). Its geology
72-480: Is complex, with numerous rock formations of different materials and ages intermingled with one another. Essentially, the Piedmont is the remnant of several ancient mountain chains that have since been eroded. Geologists have identified at least five separate events which have led to sediment deposition, including the Grenville orogeny (the collision of continents that created the supercontinent Rodinia ) and
90-611: Is its southern boundary.) The fall line, where the land rises abruptly from the coastal plain, marks the limit of navigability on many major rivers, so inland ports sprang up along it. Within the Piedmont region itself, there are several areas of urban concentration, the largest being the Atlanta metropolitan area in Georgia. The Piedmont cuts Maryland in half, covering the Baltimore–Washington metropolitan area . In Virginia ,
108-618: The Appalachian orogeny during the formation of Pangaea . The last major event in the history of the Piedmont was the break-up of Pangaea, when North America and Africa began to separate. Large basins formed from the rifting and were filled by the sediments shed from the surrounding higher ground. The series of Mesozoic basins is almost entirely located inside the Piedmont region. Piedmont soils are generally clay -like ( Ultisols ) and moderately fertile. In some areas they have suffered from erosion and over-cropping, particularly in
126-529: The New England Uplands section is that of a maturely-dissected plateau with narrow valleys, and the entire area is greatly modified by glaciation . It is the most widespread of the geomorphic sections in the New England Province , extending from Canada through New England down to the Seaboard section and extending southwestward through New York and New Jersey as two narrow upland projections,
144-745: The Ramapo Mountains . Another belt of ancient metamorphic and igneous rock crops out along the southern margin of the Newark Basin south and west of Trenton , New Jersey . In this region, the rocks are referred to as part of the Trenton Prong . [REDACTED] This article incorporates public domain material from The Highlands Province . United States Geological Survey . 40°50′17″N 73°56′10″W / 40.838°N 73.936°W / 40.838; -73.936 New England Uplands The topography of
162-529: The Reading Prong and the Manhattan Prong . Numerous hills and mountains rise above the general level of the upland; except in the presence of mountains, the horizon of the regional landscape is fairly level. Glaciation has resulted in the erosion and rounding off of the bedrock topography and numerous rock basin lakes. Glacial drift is thin, patchy, and stony, and ice-contact features such as kames , kame terraces, and eskers are abundant. The surface of
180-777: The Taconic Mountains and its foothills, and by the Reading and Manhattan Prongs that extend southwestward from the New England states. Although geologists refer to the larger of these extensions as the Reading Prong , in this region it is more commonly known as the New York - New Jersey Highlands , and locally as the Hudson Highlands, the New Jersey Highlands, the Ramapo Mountains , or simply
198-471: The Highlands. The Highlands are bounded on the southeast and on the northwest by the lowlands of the Piedmont and Great Valley provinces, respectively. The mountains and valleys that make up the Highlands are part of a relatively long, linear, and narrow regional geological feature that averages 16 to 32 kilometers (9.9 to 19.9 miles) in width, with a maximum width of 40 kilometers (25 miles), and extends in
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#1732766154229216-464: The New England Uplands slopes southeast from maximum inland altitudes around 670 meters (2,200 feet), excluding the other mountainous sections of the province, to about 122 to 152 meters (400 to 499 ft) along its seaward edge at the narrow coastal Seaboard section, which goes down to sea level. In the New York Bight watershed, the New England Uplands section is represented by a portion of
234-879: The Piedmont Upland, and the Piedmont Lowlands sections. The Atlantic Seaboard Fall Line marks the Piedmont's eastern boundary with the Coastal Plain. To the west, it is mostly bounded by the Blue Ridge Mountains , the easternmost range of the Appalachians. The width of the Piedmont varies, being quite narrow above the Delaware River but nearly 300 miles (475 km) wide in North Carolina . The Piedmont's area
252-553: The South where cotton was historically the chief crop. In the central Piedmont region of North Carolina and Virginia , tobacco is the main crop, while in the north region there is more diversity, including orchards , dairying , and general farming . The portion of the Piedmont region in the Southern United States is closely associated with the Piedmont blues , a style of blues music that originated there in
270-461: The foundations of Manhattan's skyscrapers . The Manhattan Prong and the Reading Prong are separated by the Newark Basin in the south, but the two features merge at the northern terminus of the Newark Basin in the vicinity of Peekskill , New York . A band of mountains that rise nearly one thousand feet along the northwestern margin of the Newark Basin in New York and New Jersey are called
288-665: The late 19th century. According to the Piedmont Blues Preservation Society, most Piedmont blues musicians came from Virginia, North and South Carolina, and Georgia. During the Great Migration , African Americans migrated to the Piedmont. With the Appalachian Mountains to the west, those who might otherwise have spread into rural areas stayed in cities and were thus exposed to a broader mixture of music than those in, for example,
306-575: The north. Piedmont (United States) The Piedmont / ˈ p iː d m ɒ n t / is a plateau region located in the Eastern United States . It is situated between the Atlantic Plain and the Blue Ridge Mountains , stretching from New York in the north to central Alabama in the south. The Piedmont Province is a physiographic province of the larger Appalachian Highlands physiographic division and consists of
324-474: The rural Mississippi delta. Thus, Piedmont blues was influenced by many types of music, such as ragtime , country, and popular songs — styles that had comparatively less influence on blues music in other regions. Many major cities are located on the Atlantic Seaboard fall line , the eastern boundary of the Piedmont. (In Georgia and Alabama, where the Piedmont runs mostly east to west, the fall line
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