It is now covered in Miner’s Lettuce, Forget-Me-Nots, ivy, blackberry vines and a variety of other weeds. two trees, a bay and an oak, which have fallen in the last couple of years of drought, were removed- trunk, limbs and stumps. Thanks to the City of Napa Park and Rec Dept. The heavy rains of El Nino and loose soil over a clay and rock foundation have eroded the hillside in the side back of the Nature Center. HELP WANTED at the CAROLYN PARR NATURE CENTER These changes will occur despite any human efforts to interfere with or change the natural process. But for those who do care about the origin and nature of the earth, this knowledge will give a basis for accepting the undisputable evidence of our ever changing world. So what good is an understanding of geological time and supercontinents? Some people could care less. Rocks found within the Appalachian Mountains in the east and rocks from Scotland and Iceland are all the same type. Check it out on a Globe sometime.Īnimal and plant fossils of the same families or species have been found in separate continents proving that once upon a time they evolved within the same supercontinent.īy analyzing rocks found within the edges of different continents scientist have discovered they have the same or similar components. A good example of this is Africa and South America which are nearly a perfect match. Like a giant puzzle the continents can fit together. So what proof is there for the formation and deformation of supercontinents? Volcanoes on a local scale do the same thing, supplying rock material for building mountains. These in turn create more landmasses and move the plates around. In addition to these plates there are ocean rifts which spew out molten rocks from deep within the earth. Think of taking a hardboiled egg in the shell and carefully drop it and you get a good idea what the plates look like. These landmasses are moved around by tectonic plates. They float above the deep molten, heavy, dark and full of iron, magma core because the rocks are lighter. Landmasses float on top of the earth crust which is +- 50 miles thick and is called the Lithosphere. So what causes these supercontinents to form and then to split off into separate continents? The San Francisco Bay during the Ice Age, only 15,000 years ago receded and was a valley much like the Salinas Valley.The rise and fall of the bay water, caused from either uplifting the land or a drop in the water level, will continue. The land west of the San Andreas Fault is moving at a rate of 2” a year and will someday be far to the north, sliding along the Pacific Plate. There were periods of “great extinctions” when the majority of all living things died. These cycles change the formations of landmasses affect climate, and ocean levels, and the evolution and extinction of species. These are followed by divisions into separate landmasses. A supercontinent is when all the landmasses are stuck together. The earth has gone through several cycles of supercontinents. Even for those who profess to understand geological time, they are strained to imagine these near eternal periods. Our lives come in short and small packages 85 years to live if we’re lucky, a marriage may last some 30 years if both are strong and patient, high school a mere 4 years. The earth was created some five billion years ago (BP-before present) let’s write that out to get a sense of the enormity, 5,000,000,000 BP. All necessary training is easily provided. The only requirement for volunteers are interest and enthusiasm. They construct displays, assist with publicity and fundraising, and perform maintenance tasks. Docents staff the center Wednesdays and weekend afternoons and host tour groups. ![]() The Carolyn Parr Nature Center is an all-volunteer organization. Group tours and school classes can be scheduled during the week by calling the Nature Center. ![]() Admission is free.Īll its programs are free to members of the Nature Center, $5 for non-members. The Center is open on Wednesdays from 10 am to 4 pm as well as Saturday and Sunday 1-4 pm. The Nature Center and its affiliated museum are dedicated to helping people of all ages learn more about their local natural environment. The Nature Center is named for Carolyn Parr, whose generous bequest provided for its establishment in 1981. The Carolyn Parr Nature Center is managed by the Napa Valley Naturalists.
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