The marginal mountains

The Appalachians

Erosion also profoundly altered the marginal mountains. The Appalachians have been planed down to such an extent that their crest lines are smooth-topped for hundreds of miles. In Canada the highest level lies at about 4,000 feet (1,200 metres), in the flattops of the Shickshocks (French: Chic-Chocs); another level exists at 2,000 feet (600 metres) on Mount Carleton; and lower ones lie at roughly 1,100 feet (300 metres) and 600 feet (180 metres) in the Acadian ranges. In New England, mountains like Mounts Washington and Monadnock, which are composed of highly resistant rock, rise above a broad mass of ridges at just above the 2,000-foot level; those ridges, in turn, rise above the 1,100 foot-high New England Upland. Pleistocene glaciation deepened and straightened the valleys, strewing their sides and parts of the coast with debris. Portions of sea-buried end moraines, which mark the limit of the tonguing glaciers, form offshore banks and islands east and south of Newfoundland, Nova Scotia, and New England. The unglaciated Appalachian Mountains—i.e., those located south of the Susquehanna River—have long flat-topped summits at elevations of about 2,500 feet (750 metres) and broad terraces at 500 to 600 feet (150 to 180 metres). The Ridge and Valley section’s pattern of drainage consists of short, deep gaps across the ridges and long parallel stretches in between. East of the Blue Ridge extends the Piedmont Upland, terminating abruptly in the fall line, where its rivers plunge down over rapids or falls to the Atlantic Coastal Plain. The Hudson-Mohawk gap represents a major break between the northern and the southern Appalachians and affords a natural point of entry to the interior of the continent.

The Cordilleras

Taking up about one-third of North America, the Cordilleras completely dominate Alaska and Central America and swell out widely in the United States as the Rocky Mountains.

In Canada the Cordilleras consist of six well-marked zones: (1) the 10,000- to 12,000-foot- (3,000- to 3,700-metre-) high Rocky Mountains, continuing north into the Brooks Range of Alaska, (2) the Rocky Mountain Trench, a profound fault feature forming the headwaters of the Columbia, Fraser, Peace, and Yukon rivers, (3) the interior uplands and old fold mountains from the Selkirk and Okanogan ranges in the south to the Cassiar Mountains and the Yukon Plateau in the north, mostly lying at elevations of about 2,400 feet (700 metres) but with ridges above 8,000 feet (2,400 metres), (4) the Coast Mountains, extending north into the Alaska Range and including lofty volcanoes in the north, (5) the Inside Passage from Puget Sound to Alaska, which is possibly a downfaulted zone flooded by the sea, and (6) a structurally complex outer island arc, running from Vancouver Island to the Aleutian Islands. The magnificent scenery of the northern Rocky Mountains, including U-shaped valleys often extending westward into sea-drowned fjords, has resulted from frequent glaciation, and some areas still nurse sizable glaciers.

In the United States, the Rockies, typified by flat or gently folded sedimentary rocks, sweep south from Canada into northern Montana as the Lewis Range. They then change to a group of domes or long anticlines with “parks” or broad basins between them. This park-and-dome area is characterized by the “peeling back” of younger rocks from the cores of much older, primary rocks at the heart of the upfolded anticlines. The southern Rockies have striking volcanic peaks. West of the Rockies and east of the Pacific Coast Ranges is a vast region of intermontane plateaus, extending from eastern Washington state to northern Mexico. The immense lava tablelands of the central Columbia–Snake River basin are known as the Columbia Plateau. To the south lie the Basin and Range Province and the Colorado Plateau. The former, extending from southern Oregon and Idaho to northern Mexico, apparently is the result of the splitting of a broad central plateau by a great number of fault-block ridges, the slopes of which plunge under basins partly filled with debris that has been weathered and transported downslope from the ridges. The region includes all of the continent’s major deserts. The Colorado Plateau is a massive feature with a series of relatively flat-bedded tablelands, made steplike by faulting action and intruded by domes of igneous rocks. Its slow rate of uplift was matched by the steady downcutting of the Colorado River and its tributaries, producing the Grand Canyon—one of the most spectacular gorges in the world. Westward rise the mountains of the Sierra Nevada, which reach to nearly 15,000 feet (4,500 metres), are intensively folded and faulted, and continue north in the Cascade Range, which is marked by some of North America’s most beautiful volcanic cones. Seaward of this mountain zone is a line of depressions marked by Puget Sound, the Central Valley of California, and the Gulf of California. These are separated by knots of volcanoes, as in the Klamath Mountains, and enclosed by the ranges along the Pacific coast, including the Olympic Mountains of Washington. This whole area has been profoundly faulted because it lies near the western edge of the North American tectonic plate, which is grinding against the offshore Pacific plate. Along some of the faults, notably the San Andreas, earthquake shocks occur, and occasionally these have produced devastating results.

In Mexico the folded ranges of the Sierra Madre to the west and east of the central Mexican Plateau terminate in the grandeur of a mass of high volcanoes of 15,000 to 17,000 feet (4,570 to 5,200 metres) located to the south of the fertile lake-filled basins of Guadalajara and Mexico City. The Balsas River basin then makes a distinct break. To the south the Sierra Madre del Sur and the mountains of Guatemala and Honduras exhibit a west-east trend. This structural region includes a sweep of fold mountains of 4,000 to 6,000 feet (1,200 to 1,800 metres), with Caribbean extensions in Jamaica, southern Cuba, the island of Hispaniola, and Puerto Rico. These mountains swing southward through the West Indies, a chain of volcanic islands fringed with coral reefs or limestone plateaus. Another arc, of two lines of fold mountains on either side of a trench through western Nicaragua, dominates Central America and links it with the folds of western Colombia in South America.