Generally speaking, I'm not a fan of man-made landscape alteration, but fresh highway roadcuts provide a great unweathered view of the local geology.
A few weeks ago, after years of proposals followed by years of construction, the northern extension of "Super 7" (US route 7) north of Danbury CT finally opened - and the exposures of the Stockbridge Marble along the road are spectacular! The Stockbridge Marble was formed as the rocks of the carbonate bank (limestones deposited off the coast) of ancestral North America were metamorphosed during the Taconic Orogeny ( see blog on 12/2/2009 and the diagram below).
The rocks were further deformed, and actually overtured, in the subsequent Acadian Orogeny. The extent of those deformations are evident in the complex folds pictured here.
Carbonate rocks, including marbles, generally weather faster than silicate rocks, and in SW Connecticut and SE New York many of the regional valleys are underlain by less resistant marbles. Along route 7 between Danbury and New Milford the Stockbridge Marble underlies the Still River valley, and is bounded by harder rocks on either side of the valley. The same rock underlies the Saw Mill River valley in New York where is known as the Inwood Marble (there's a "Marble Avenue" exit on the Saw Mill River Parkway in Pleasantville/Thornwood, and the Shop Rite plaza in Thornwood is built on an old marble quarry there - great outcrops of snowy white "snowflake" marble are still visible on the quarry walls behind the stores, but they're weathering fast!).
Riders of the Hudson Metro North commuter rail can get a good look at the Inwood Marble at the Marbledale stop on the way into Manhattan.
