Geology of the Rocky Mountains Japan, Indonesia and the Aleutians; others are fragments of oceanic crust obducted onto the continental margin while others represent small isolated mid-oceanic islands. Magma generated above the subducting slab rose into the North American continental crust about inland. Great arc-shaped volcanic mountain ranges, known as the Sierran Arc, grew as lava and ash spewed out of dozens of individual volcanoes. Beneath the surface, great masses of molten rock were injected and hardened in place. For 270 million years, the effects of plate collisions were focused very near the edge of the North American plate boundary, far to the west of
To the Ends of the Earth To the Ends of the Earth To the Ends of the Earth is the name given to a trilogy of nautical, relational novels—"Rites of Passage" (1980), "Close Quarters" (1987), and "Fire Down Below" (1989)—by British author William Golding. Set on a former British man-of-war transporting migrants to Australia in the early 19th century, the novels explore themes of class (assumed status) and man's reversion to savagery when isolated, in this case, the closed society of the ship's passengers and crew. The first of the books, "Rites of Passage," was awarded the Man Booker Prize in 1980. The trilogy as a