You can think of it as being a setting something like the Japanese Islands, mainly a volcanic chain of islands that collided with North America at the time that I mentioned. Turning to the Uwharries area here, you'll notice that we can show a bit more detail of the geology on a larger scale map. For orientation, we're right here in Asheboro. The geology of the Uwharries area, you'll see when we get down to this larger scale, is a lot more detailed. And just to give a little background on how we do one of these maps, you'll notice that the region is divided into formations here.
Formations are the fundamental divisions of geology on geological maps.
And I think it's instructive from the standpoint that you're looking at rocks, to know what a formation is and know what to expect when a geologist talks about a formation. The geologists' definition of a formation is a body of rock identified on the basis of lithic character. That is, the rock type, or characteristics of the rock type and stratigraphic position, which means the order which it was deposited-in other words, where in the stack is that body of rock. It has to be a large enough rock body that you can show it on that kind of map. An important point to make to archaeologists is that a formation can refer to one rock type, repetitions of two or more rock types, or an extreme heterogeneity of rock types that constitutes a form of unity compared to the rocks around it.