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Laramie Mountains
The Laramie Mountains are a range of moderately high peaks on the eastern edge of the Rocky Mountains in the U.S states of Wyoming and Colorado. The range is the northernmost extension of the line of the ranges along the eastern side of the Rockies, and in particular of the higher peaks of the Front Range directly to the south. North of the range, the gap between the Laramie range and the Bighorn Mountains provided the route for historical trails, such as the Oregon Trail, the Mormon Trail, and the Pony Express. The Laramie Mountains begin in northern Colorado and extend discontinuously into southeastern Wyoming between Cheyenne and Laramie and northward to Casper. (By some definitions the Laramies are only in Wyoming.) They are named after the Laramie River, which cuts through the range from southwest to northeast and joins the North Platte River east of the range in eastern Wyoming. The mountains in turn give their name to the Laramide orogeny, the uplift of the North American ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Laramie Peak
Laramie Peak Is the highest and most prominent peak in the Laramie Range of Wyoming. With a peak elevation of , it is the only peak in the Laramie Range to exceed an elevation of . It can be seen from great distances from both sides of the Laramie Range including from around 100 miles (160 km) away at the top of the Scotts Bluff National Monument in Nebraska and in the Wyoming towns of Wheatland, Douglas, Rock River, and immediately outside the cities of Laramie and Cheyenne. Name The mountain was named for Jacques La Ramee, a French-Canadian fur trader who lived in the area in the 1820s and who was found dead at the Laramie River. History Laramie Peak was an important landmark for the settlers on the Oregon Trail and the Mormon Trail. After reaching Scotts Bluff the top of the hill was visible at the horizon. For more than one week the hill guided the people on the track and signal the end of the relatively flat part of the way, reaching the Rocky Mountains Ma ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
North American Plate
The North American Plate is a tectonic plate covering most of North America, Cuba, the Bahamas, extreme northeastern Asia, and parts of Iceland and the Azores. With an area of , it is the Earth's second largest tectonic plate, behind the Pacific Plate (which borders the plate to the west). It extends eastward to the Mid-Atlantic Ridge and westward to the Chersky Range in eastern Siberia. The plate includes both continental and oceanic crust. The interior of the main continental landmass includes an extensive granitic core called a craton. Along most of the edges of this craton are fragments of crustal material called terranes, which are accreted to the craton by tectonic actions over a long span of time. It is thought that much of North America west of the Rocky Mountains is composed of such terranes. Boundaries The southern boundary with the Cocos Plate to the west and the Caribbean Plate to the east is a transform fault, represented by the Swan Islands Transform Fault unde ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Medicine Bow Mountains
The Medicine Bow Mountains are a mountain range in the Rocky Mountains that extend from northern Colorado into southern Wyoming. The northern extent of this range is the sub-range the Snowy Range. From the northern end of Colorado's Never Summer Mountains, the Medicine Bow mountains extend north from Cameron Pass along the border between Larimer and Jackson counties in Colorado and northward into south central Wyoming. In Wyoming, the range sits west of Laramie, in Albany and Carbon counties to the route of the Union Pacific Railroad and U.S. Interstate 80. The mountains often serve as a symbol for the city of Laramie. The range is home to Snowy Range Ski Area. The highest peak in the range is Clark Peak (), located in the Rawah Wilderness along the southern end of the range in Northern Colorado. Much of the range is located within the Medicine Bow National Forest in Wyoming. The highest peak on the Wyoming side is Medicine Bow Peak (). The range is drained along the west ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Sedimentary Basin
Sedimentary basins are region-scale depressions of the Earth's crust where subsidence has occurred and a thick sequence of sediments have accumulated to form a large three-dimensional body of sedimentary rock. They form when long-term subsidence creates a regional depression that provides Accommodation (geology), accommodation space for accumulation of sediments. Over millions or tens or hundreds of millions of years the deposition of sediment, primarily gravity-driven transportation of water-borne eroded material, acts to fill the depression. As the sediments are buried, they are subject to increasing pressure and begin the processes of compaction (geology), compaction and lithification that transform them into sedimentary rock. Sedimentary basins are created by deformation of Earth's lithosphere in diverse geological settings, usually as a result of plate tectonics, plate tectonic activity. Mechanisms of crustal deformation that lead to subsidence and sedimentary basin formati ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Intermontane
Intermontane is a physiographic adjective formed from the prefix " inter-" (''signifying among, between, amid, during, within, mutual, reciprocal'') and the adjective "montane" (inhabiting, or growing in mountainous regions, especially cool, moist upland slopes below the timberline). The corresponding ''physiographic'' noun is intermountain, while the noun ''intermontane'' is an ''ecologic'' noun meaning ''among, between, amid, or within " flora and fauna of a montane habitat.''" As an example, an alpine region would be an intermontane for a species that migrates between a glacial region and a subalpine region. Use of the term *Intermontane Basin, a wide valley between mountain ranges that is partly filled with alluvium such as New Zealand's Mackenzie Basin. *Intermontane Belt, a physiogeological region in the North American Pacific Northwest. *Intermontane Plateaus, the United States physiographic region of the Intermountain West. *Intermontane Steppe, a term used mainly i ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Life Zone
The life zone concept was developed by C. Hart Merriam in 1889 as a means of describing areas with similar plant and animal communities. Merriam observed that the changes in these communities with an increase in latitude at a constant elevation are similar to the changes seen with an increase in elevation at a constant latitude. The life zones Merriam identified are most applicable to western North America, being developed on the San Francisco Peaks, Arizona and Cascade Range of the northwestern USA. He tried to develop a system that is applicable across the North American continent, but that system is rarely referred to. The life zones that Merriam identified, along with characteristic plants, are as follows: * Lower Sonoran (low, hot desert): creosote bush, Joshua tree * Upper Sonoran (desert steppe or chaparral): sagebrush, scrub oak, Colorado pinyon, Utah juniper * Transition (open woodlands): ponderosa pine * Canadian (fir forest): Rocky Mountain Douglas fir, quaking aspe ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Laramie Mountains Wyoming
Laramie is derived from a French surname ''LaRamie'' and often refers to Laramie, Wyoming, or one of the places named after it. Places *Laramie (CTA Blue Line station), a former station on the Chicago Transit Authority's 'L' system *Laramie (CTA station), a station on the Chicago Transit Authority's 'L' system *Laramie, Wyoming *Laramie County, Wyoming *Episcopal Diocese of Western Nebraska, known as the Missionary District of Laramie when it included portions of Wyoming * Laramie Mountains, a range of peaks in the Rocky Mountains in the states of Wyoming and Colorado in the United States *Laramie River * North Laramie River People * Laramie Dean, American guitarist * Jacques La Ramee (alt. spelling Jacques LaRamie), French fur trapper, who was killed near the river bearing his name Arts, entertainment, and media * ''Laramie'' (film), 1949 western starring Charles Starrett * ''Laramie'' (TV series), television series *''The Laramie Project'', 2000 play written and directed by Mo ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Peneplain
390px, Sketch of a hypothetical peneplain formation after an orogeny. In geomorphology and geology, a peneplain is a low-relief plain formed by protracted erosion. This is the definition in the broadest of terms, albeit with frequency the usage of peneplain is meant to imply the representation of a near-final (or penultimate) stage of fluvial erosion during times of extended tectonic stability. Peneplains are sometimes associated with the cycle of erosion theory of William Morris Davis, but Davis and other workers have also used the term in a purely descriptive manner without any theory or particular genesis attached. The existence of some peneplains, and peneplanation as a process in nature, is not without controversy, due to a lack of contemporary examples and uncertainty in identifying relic examples. By some definitions, peneplains grade down to a base level represented by sea level, yet in other definitions such a condition is ignored. Geomorphologist Karna Lidmar-Bergstrà ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Erosion Surface
In geology and geomorphology, an erosion surface is a surface of rock or regolith that was formed by erosion and not by construction (e.g. lava flows, sediment deposition) nor fault displacement. Erosional surfaces within the stratigraphic record are known as unconformities, but not all unconformities are buried erosion surfaces. Erosion surfaces vary in scale and can be formed on a mountain range or a rock. Particularly large and flat erosion surfaces receive the names of peneplain, paleoplain, planation surface or pediplain. An example of erosion surface is road surface erosion which is caused by natural and anthropogenic factors. Erosion surface can be measured through direct, contact measurement methods and indirect, non-contact measurement methods. Road surface erosion Just like mountains and rocks, erosion can also occur on unsealed roads due to natural and anthropogenic factors. Road surface erosion could be caused by snowfall, rainfall and wind. The material and hydr ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Monadnock
An inselberg or monadnock () is an isolated rock hill, knob, ridge, or small mountain that rises abruptly from a gently sloping or virtually level surrounding plain. In Southern Africa a similar formation of granite is known as a koppie, an Afrikaans word ("little head") from the Dutch diminutive word ''kopje''. If the inselberg is dome-shaped and formed from granite or gneiss, it can also be called a bornhardt, though not all bornhardts are inselbergs. An inselberg results when a body of rock resistant to erosion, such as granite, occurring within a body of softer rocks, is exposed by differential erosion and lowering of the surrounding landscape. Etymology Inselberg The word ''inselberg'' is a loan word from German, and means "island mountain". The term was coined in 1900 by geologist Wilhelm Bornhardt (1864–1946) to describe the abundance of such features found in eastern Africa. At that time, the term applied only to arid landscape features. However, it has sin ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Granite
Granite () is a coarse-grained (phaneritic) intrusive igneous rock composed mostly of quartz, alkali feldspar, and plagioclase. It forms from magma with a high content of silica and alkali metal oxides that slowly cools and solidifies underground. It is common in the continental crust of Earth, where it is found in igneous intrusions. These range in size from dikes only a few centimeters across to batholiths exposed over hundreds of square kilometers. Granite is typical of a larger family of ''granitic rocks'', or ''granitoids'', that are composed mostly of coarse-grained quartz and feldspars in varying proportions. These rocks are classified by the relative percentages of quartz, alkali feldspar, and plagioclase (the QAPF classification), with true granite representing granitic rocks rich in quartz and alkali feldspar. Most granitic rocks also contain mica or amphibole minerals, though a few (known as leucogranites) contain almost no dark minerals. Granite is nearly alway ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Precambrian
The Precambrian (or Pre-Cambrian, sometimes abbreviated pêž’, or Cryptozoic) is the earliest part of Earth's history, set before the current Phanerozoic Eon. The Precambrian is so named because it preceded the Cambrian, the first period of the Phanerozoic Eon, which is named after Cambria, the Latinised name for Wales, where rocks from this age were first studied. The Precambrian accounts for 88% of the Earth's geologic time. The Precambrian is an informal unit of geologic time, subdivided into three eons ( Hadean, Archean, Proterozoic) of the geologic time scale. It spans from the formation of Earth about 4.6 billion years ago ( Ga) to the beginning of the Cambrian Period, about million years ago ( Ma), when hard-shelled creatures first appeared in abundance. Overview Relatively little is known about the Precambrian, despite it making up roughly seven-eighths of the Earth's history, and what is known has largely been discovered from the 1960s onwards. The Precambrian fossil ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
