A Geologic Walking Tour
of Turners Falls Massachusetts

A Geologic Overview of Turners Falls 

The very beginning: A marriage of land masses.

The geological story of Turners Falls begins about 250 million years ago, when all the continents on Earth had joined to form one large supercontinent called Pangea. Three hundred million years in the making, Pangea was an assemblage of six to ten ancient continents that collided and fused together. This supercontinent was so huge that its northern and southern edges reached Earth’s northern and southern poles.

Moving on: The land masses separate.

This union of continents did not last long, geologically speaking. Around 245 million years ago, Pangea began to crack or rift apart. Fragments that would become Europe headed east, and those that would become Africa headed south. The basin between North America, Europe, and Africa became the Atlantic Ocean. Pangea is still breaking up. To this day, the floor of the Atlantic Ocean continues to spread about one inch each year.

Left in the rift.

The little village of Turners Falls lies roughly in the middle of an extensive rift valley that spanned Pangea’s heart. In this rift valley (called the Newark Superbasin), we can see evidence of both the violent volcanic eruptions that heralded Pangea’s breakup and the mild periods of river and lake formation that followed. And we can read the story of the rifting in the composition of rocks found from Nova Scotia to South Carolina.

A lot of geology in a small place.

Downtown Turners Falls offers a unique opportunity to see examples of all these features in a very small, easily walkable area. Let’s get started!