Behold the “Basket,” Massanutten Mountain and its Fort Valley, set amid the larger embracing structure of Virginia’s “Great Valley” (the Shenandoah Valley). Supposedly, “Massanutten” is a native American word for basket, referring to the valley-in-a-mountain-in-a-bigger-valley landscape.

This canoe-shaped mountain/valley couplet is the physiographic expression of a vast synclinorium which underlies the Great Valley sub-province of the Valley & Ridge physiographic province. The yin to this yang is the Blue Ridge province to the east, a vast anticlinorium of basement rock shoved upwards and westwards during the Alleghanian phase of Appalachian mountain building.

In the Valley & Ridge, differential erosion of these rock units has produced topographic lows where carbonates and shaley units crop out, and ridges where quartz-rich units emerge. The fencelike mountain ridge of Massanutten (~2900 feet in elevation) is held up by the Silurian-aged Massanutten Sandstone.

For your viewing pleasure, I’ve gathered here traditional Google Earth and Flash Earth views, as well as some perspective shots and three “specialties”: (1) Google Maps “terrain view”, (2) an elevation rendition by C. Bailey and S. Hamilton from William & Mary (2009), and (3) a detail from the recently released Geologic Map of Shenandoah National Park and Surrounding areas by S. Southworth and others (2009), which goes as far west as the Massanutten Mountain complex.

I think I want to Enter The Basket. (Flash Earth link)

I’d rather kick back and read up on the geology of this area (NOVA/Bentley field course link)

That geologic map was too small. I want the original so I can check out the details (USGS link)

I want that elevation overlay for Google Earth (.kmz link)