The Little Snowy Mountains are a small

mountain range A mountain range or hill range is a series of mountains or hills arranged in a line and connected by high ground. A mountain system or mountain belt is a group of mountain ranges with similarity in form, structure, and alignment that have arise ...

in central Montana about southeast of Lewistown. The range lies mostly in Fergus County, but the southern part of the range extends into Golden Valley and Musselshell counties.''Big Snowy Mountains, Montana,'' 30x60 Minute Quadrangle, USGS, 1993''Musselshell, Montana,'' 30x60 Minute Quadrangle, USGS, 1993 The range is a lower continuation of the Big Snowy Mountains which lie immediately to the west. The small Pike Creek Hills are to the east. The mountain pass between the Big and Little Snowies is at where Red Hill Road crosses the range. The pass elevation is considerably lower than the peaks of the Big Snowy range, but only about lower than the highest of the Little Snowy Range which are just northeast of the pass. Bold Butte, a named highpoint near the center of the range, has an elevation of . The South Fork Flatwillow Creek runs from the north side of the pass near Red Hill and east along the north side of the range. Willow Creek and various tributaries drain most of the range to the south and flows into the

Musselshell River The Musselshell River is a tributary of the Missouri River, long from its origins at the confluence of its North and South Forks near Martinsdale, Montana to its mouth on the Missouri River. It is located east of the Continental divide entire ...

on to the southeast.

Geology

Geologically the Little Snowy Mountains are a continuation of the Big Snowy Anticlinorium structure to the west and is entirely underlain by

sedimentary rock Sedimentary rocks are types of rock that are formed by the accumulation or deposition of mineral or organic particles at Earth's surface, followed by cementation. Sedimentation is the collective name for processes that cause these particles ...

. The area adjacent to the Big Snowy Mountains is underlain by Mississippian

limestone Limestone ( calcium carbonate ) is a type of carbonate sedimentary rock which is the main source of the material lime. It is composed mostly of the minerals calcite and aragonite, which are different crystal forms of . Limestone forms whe ...

and

mudstone Mudstone, a type of mudrock, is a fine-grained sedimentary rock whose original constituents were clays or muds. Mudstone is distinguished from '' shale'' by its lack of fissility (parallel layering).Blatt, H., and R.J. Tracy, 1996, ''Petrology. ...

and the main part of the range is underlain by the Pennsylvanian Alaska Bench Formation limestone with

Jurassic The Jurassic ( ) is a Geological period, geologic period and System (stratigraphy), stratigraphic system that spanned from the end of the Triassic Period million years ago (Mya) to the beginning of the Cretaceous Period, approximately Mya. The J ...

Piper Formation (mudstone, limestone and

gypsum Gypsum is a soft sulfate mineral composed of calcium sulfate dihydrate, with the chemical formula . It is widely mined and is used as a fertilizer and as the main constituent in many forms of plaster, blackboard or sidewalk chalk, and drywall. ...

) along the north. The south flank is underlain by often steeply south dipping Jurassic through

Cretaceous The Cretaceous ( ) is a geological period that lasted from about 145 to 66 million years ago (Mya). It is the third and final period of the Mesozoic Era, as well as the longest. At around 79 million years, it is the longest geological period of th ...

formations. An outcrop of Lower Cretaceous Kootenay Formation occurs along an

anticline In structural geology, an anticline is a type of fold that is an arch-like shape and has its oldest beds at its core, whereas a syncline is the inverse of an anticline. A typical anticline is convex up in which the hinge or crest is the ...

on Sahara Hill. Several thin, generally steeply dipping Upper Cretaceous formations occur along the southern margin of the range.Porter, Karen W., Edith M. Wilde, and Susan M. Vuke, ''Preliminary Geologic Map of the Big Snowy Mountains 30' x 60' Quadrangle, Central Montana,'' Montana Bureau of Mines and Geology, 1996
Open File Report MBMG 341
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Notes

{{Montana Mountain ranges of Montana Landforms of Fergus County, Montana Lewis and Clark National Forest

Geology

See also

Notes