Nova bonsai garden

[penumbra]

@markyscott Forgive me if I missed it but what does it mean Nova. How you come up with that name?

Pretty sure it means Northern Virginia.

 

[rockm]

Pretty sure it means Northern Virginia.

Otherwise known as "The DMV," (as in the District, Maryland, and Virginia) which is a region

 

[penumbra]

Otherwise known as "The DMV," (as in the District, Maryland, and Virginia) which is a region

When I was a child I remember the area being called WAMAVA.

 

[rockm]

When I was a child I remember the area being called WAMAVA.

Blame "The ATL" for the name change.

 

[markyscott]

@markyscott Forgive me if I missed it but what does it mean Nova. How you come up with that name?

NoVa = Northern Virginia

 

[Wood]

Well, *ackshually*, as much as Front Royal is in the northern corner of Virginia, "Northern Virginia" usually means the DC suburbs

 

[markyscott]

Well, *ackshually*, as much as Front Royal is in the northern corner of Virginia, "Northern Virginia" usually means the DC suburbs

Understood - and I’ll beg forgiveness as a newcomer. Our property is not in Front Royal though. It’s over 1/2 hour east in Delaplane. That’s not quite in the DC suburbs, but it’s also not too far of a drive to get to them. So I took a little liberty with my geography and borrowed the acronym. Hopefully it didn’t cause too much confusion.

- S

 

[penumbra]

Well, *ackshually*, as much as Front Royal is in the northern corner of Virginia, "Northern Virginia" usually means the DC suburbs

Front Royal is Technically classified as Northern Virginia. This isn't a random designation. I have been living here for over 40 years and visiting Front Royal for 62 years and it wore this moniker long before that.

 

[markyscott]

Front Royal is Technically classified as Northern Virginia. This isn't a random designation. I have been living here for over 40 years and visiting Front Royal for 62 years and it wore this moniker long before that.

I‘m going to let the two of you sort it, lol. I’m not changing the name of the thread though.

 

[penumbra]

Understood - and I’ll beg forgiveness as a newcomer. Our property is not in Front Royal though. It’s over 1/2 hour east in Delaplane. That’s not quite in the DC suburbs, but it’s also not too far of a drive to get to them. So I took a little liberty with my geography and borrowed the acronym. Hopefully it didn’t cause too much confusion.

- S

Delaplane, cool. I had a few customers over there when I had my landscape business. I have traversed both the major highways (actually roads) there so I have driven past your farm many times.
And you caused no confusion and did not take liberty without justification, it is in No Va. This being the case, most folks on this side of the mountain call it the Shenandoah Valley Region.

 

[Wood]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Northern_Virginia?wprov=sfla1 I stand corrected

Having grown up in Springfield, just outside the Beltway, I've always thought of "Northern Virginia" ending at the first farmer's field and the rest of that as just "Virginia". Welcome to the area!

 

[penumbra]

The local paper here, printed in Winchester, is the "Northern Virginia Daily"
I see that wikipedia includes Winchester but omits Warren Co and Front Royal.
Things change, names change over time. I actually remember 40 years or so back actually feeling offended when Front Royal was included in NoVa. It never was a point of pride for me like Shenandoah Valley or Blue Ridge. Growing up as a child in Fairfax City, we always called the areas west the Blue Ridge and the areas before the first ridge we called the foothills. When I was 8 or 9 years old I knew this was where I would live.

 

[penumbra]

I've always thought of "Northern Virginia" ending at the first farmer's field and the rest of that as just "Virginia".

There is a poetic grace to this that I fully appreciate.

 

[markyscott]

So. Being a geologist, I’ve got to set the scene by talking a little geology (Of course). Those who aren’t interested can skip this part. It’s just in my nature (and it’s pretty fascinating. So here’s the story.…

 

[markyscott]

Geologists call mountain-building events “orogenies”. There are two really important ones that affect the Appalachian mountains. The earlier one is called the Grenvillian orogeny. It’s old. It ocurred about 1 billion years ago when two continents (we call them “Laurentia” and “Amazonia”) were brought together by tectonic forces, creating the supercontinent called “Rodiina”. The collision formed very tall mountains (think of the Himalayan mountains or the Alps) as well as the igneous and metamorphic rocks that make up the core of the mountains. These Grenvillian mountains slowly eroded over time. Rodinia remained intact for about 300 million years, then broke up and the continents split apart. There are lots of rocks in the Appalachian province that were deposited in North Carolina, Tennessee, and Virginia, all related to the erosion of the Grenvillian mountains of Rodinia.

 

[markyscott]

The next really big one was called the Alleghanian or Appalachian orogeny. It occurred about 300 million years ago and was caused by the continent of Africa colliding with North America forming the supercontinent of Pangea. North America and Africa didn’t look anything like what they do today - they were part of other supercontinents (Euramerica and Gondwana). This was a world-wide event. It formed a tall mountain chain, uplifting all those old Grenvillian rocks. It stretched for thousands of miles all along the eastern seaboard of North America - all the way from Alabama to Newfoundland. We can find related deformation in Africa (the Atlas mountains) and in Europe (where it is called the Caledonian orogeny). That’s exposed in Ireland, Northern Ireland, Scotland, Norway and Greenland. Here’s where we can find evidence of these two events:

 

[markyscott]

More. The Appalachian orogeny was one of a number of mountain building events that happened around this time and affecting different parts of the Appalachians. There was the Caledonian, Acadian, Ouachita, Hercynian and Alleghenian events, all of which built a massive mountain range along the east coast. What’s left today are the eroded remnants of this huge range.

Geologically, there are several provinces. Furthest to the west and extending from New York to Alabama is the Appalachian Basin. It’s what geologists call a “foreland basin” - a low lying area that sits in front of a mountain range where the eroded sediments are deposited. These sedimentary layers are mainly flat lying in the Appalachian Plateau and complexly thrust faulted and folded in the Valley and Ridge province. Thrust faults are faults that form when layers of rock are broken and shoved on top of one another when they’re pushed together by tectonic forces.

The Blue Ridge, Piedmont, and Adirondack mountains form the crystalline core of the Appalachians. Unlike the sedimentary rocks in the Appalachian Basin, they are crystalline. Think of rocks that crystallized from magma or that were formed through recrystallization during deep burial and heating. The crystalline rocks of the Blue Ridge mountains are riding on a huge system of thrust faults which are shoved eastward over the Appalachian basin. This means if you could somehow get down below the granite and such, you’ll find more sedimentary rock like you find in the Appalachian Basin.

Here’s a map of the different provinces.

 

[markyscott]

Geologically, Delaplane (where the property is) sits within the Blue Ridge Mountain province. Physiographically, it’s in the foothills, but geologically we find crystalline rock there so it’s Blue Ridge geology. Specifically we find the Cobbler Mountain Syenite. A syenite is a rock that is pretty closely related to granite - it contains a bit more potassium than average, so it gets a different name. We find this all over the property. It’s heavily fractured. I’ve looked up some of the age dating on this rock - there was some recent U-Pb dating completed putting the crystallization age of this rock at ~723 million years old. So it was emplaced close to the end of the Grenvillian orogeny - probably during breakup of Rodinia. There were a number of granites e placed at that time (The Robertson River Igneous Suite). Here’s a picture of what it looks like:

 

[markyscott]

The property is flat lying close to the road, but gets hilly as it builds elevation. It’s right at 580’ in elevation near the road, but gets up to over 900’ at the top of the small peak on the old farm. The hills are all propped up by the syenite and covered with a thin layer of sediment. The syenite outcrops at the top of some of the hills or is covered by a few inches of soil. In the dales and in the flat lying areas there’s 10-12’ of soil. Part of the property is in hay production and there‘s a cattle lease on the back pasture. There are several small streams and a few springs on the property, but absolutely no infrastructure.

The bonsai pasture is in cattle right now, but I’ll be fencing it off. The lowest point on that pasture is right around 560’ and the highest is ~610’. On average it’s probably right around 590’. It’s surrounded by woods on all sides and there’s a stream running along one side.

First order of business is power and water. More on that later.

S

 

[rockm]

Well, *ackshually*, as much as Front Royal is in the northern corner of Virginia, "Northern Virginia" usually means the DC suburbs

Having grown up in points in Southern Va., we always considered Front Royal as an outlying section of "Northern Va.," People have commuted to D.C. from there for years.