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2 days ago · In the contiguous United States (i.e. excluding Alaska and Hawaii), the northernmost, southernmost, westernmost, and easternmost major summits are Kintla Peak in Montana, Mount Graham in Arizona, Mount Shasta in California, and East Spanish Peak in Colorado, respectively.
3 days ago · The eastern and southeastern fringes of the United States are part of the outermost margins of the continental platform, repeatedly invaded by the sea and veneered with layer after layer of young, poorly consolidated sediments.
2 days ago · Who is George Altham? George Altham was recognized for creating a vehicle which is considered one of the earliest forms of automobiles in the United States. After years of work, he invented the petrol engine (gasoline) and in 1897 installed his innovation into a vehicle for testing.
- Overview
- Geomorphic characteristics
mountain, landform that rises prominently above its surroundings, generally exhibiting steep slopes, a relatively confined summit area, and considerable local relief. Mountains generally are understood to be larger than hills, but the term has no standardized geological meaning. Very rarely do mountains occur individually. In most cases, they are found in elongated ranges or chains. When an array of such ranges is linked together, it constitutes a mountain belt. For a list of selected mountains of the world, see below.
A mountain belt is many tens to hundreds of kilometres wide and hundreds to thousands of kilometres long. It stands above the surrounding surface, which may be a coastal plain, as along the western Andes in northern Chile, or a high plateau, as within and along the Plateau of Tibet in southwest China. Mountain ranges or chains extend tens to hundreds of kilometres in length. Individual mountains are connected by ridges and separated by valleys. Within many mountain belts are plateaus, which stand high but contain little relief. Thus, for example, the Andes constitute a mountain belt that borders the entire west coast of South America; within it are both individual ranges, such as the Cordillera Blanca in which lies Peru’s highest peak, Huascarán, and the high plateau, the Altiplano, in southern Peru and western Bolivia.
Mountainous terrains have certain unifying characteristics. Such terrains have higher elevations than do surrounding areas. Moreover, high relief exists within mountain belts and ranges. Individual mountains, mountain ranges, and mountain belts that have been created by different tectonic processes, however, are often characterized by different features.
Chains of active volcanoes, such as those occurring at island arcs, are commonly marked by individual high mountains separated by large expanses of low and gentle topography. In some chains, namely those associated with “hot spots” (see below), only the volcanoes at one end of the chain are active. Thus, those volcanoes stand high, but with increasing distance away from them erosion has reduced the sizes of volcanic structures to an increasing degree.
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The folding of layers of sedimentary rocks with thicknesses of hundreds of metres to a few kilometres often leaves long parallel ridges and valleys termed fold belts, as, for example, in the Valley and Ridge province of Pennsylvania in the eastern United States. The more resistant rocks form ridges, and the valleys are underlain by weaker ones. These fold belts commonly include segments where layers of older rocks have been thrust or pushed up and over younger rocks. Such segments are known as fold and thrust belts. Typically their topography is not as regular as where folding is the most important process, but it is usually dominated by parallel ridges of resistant rock divided by valleys of weaker rock, as in the eastern flank of the Canadian Rocky Mountains or in the Jura Mountains of France and Switzerland.
Most fold and thrust belts are bounded on one side, or lie parallel to, a belt or terrain of crystalline rocks. These are metamorphic and igneous rocks that in most cases solidified at depths of several kilometres or more and that are more resistant to erosion than the sedimentary rocks deposited on top of them. These crystalline terrains typically contain the highest peaks in any mountain belt and include the highest belt in the world, the Himalayas, which was formed by the thrusting of crystalline rocks up onto the surface of the Earth. The great heights exist because of the resistance of the rocks to erosion and because the rates of continuing uplift are the highest in these areas. The topography rarely is as regularly oriented as in fold and thrust belts.
4 days ago · Make exploring New York State’s history an adventure! From the Colonial and Revolutionary Period to today, learn how our state government works, about the individuals who fought for suffrage and civil rights, statewide geography and environmental efforts, and so much more.
4 days ago · Although present in the western United States, this fold and thrust belt is most clearly revealed in the Canadian Rockies along the border between the provinces of Alberta and British Columbia, particularly in Banff and Jasper national parks.
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1 day ago · Bdóte ('meeting of waters' or 'where two rivers meet') [6] is considered a place of spiritual importance to the Dakota. [7] A Dakota-English Dictionary (1852) edited by missionary Stephen Return Riggs originally recorded the word as mdóte, noting that it was also "a name commonly applied to the country about Fort Snelling, or mouth of the Saint Peters," [8] now known as the Minnesota River.
