The Geology of Hollis

Take a self guided tour of the geology of Hollis. Created by Jim Canfield, pediatrician and amateur geologist, this tour will take you to outcrops of the seven types of bedrock underlying Hollis – "two kinds of granite, three colors of schist, and a weird old gneiss." You will also see two faults and find out "why geologically speaking, Casablanca, Hollis and Glasgow are sister cities." Here is a sampling of the bedrock types you can see on the self guided tour.

Gray slate-like schist located at Overlook Golf Club. This type of bedrock can also be found in Morocco, North Africa, and in the Atlas Mountains.	Dark brown variant of Silurian Ordovician rusty schist on Elnathan's Way in east Hollis. This is the location of one of the fault lines in Hollis.
Glacially polished exposures of Permian two mica granite/Rusty schist contact atop Woodmont Orchard.	Freshly excavated boulders of Massabesic Gneiss, an ancient sea floor sedimentary rock.

Close-up of Permian Granite intrusions into Massabesic Gneiss. This is a good example of deformations and metamorphosis of the Massabesic gneiss.

Download the following maps and text guides and you're on your way.

The maps and text guides are in pdf format and require Acrobat Reader to view. If you don't have Acrobat Reader, download it now! It's free!

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