Mount Carleton (), at , is the highest peak in the

Canadian province Canada has ten provinces and three territories that are sub-national administrative divisions under the jurisdiction of the Constitution of Canada, Canadian Constitution. In the 1867 Canadian Confederation, three provinces of British North Amer ...

New Brunswick New Brunswick is a Provinces and Territories of Canada, province of Canada, bordering Quebec to the north, Nova Scotia to the east, the Gulf of Saint Lawrence to the northeast, the Bay of Fundy to the southeast, and the U.S. state of Maine to ...

, and the

Maritime Provinces The Maritimes, also called the Maritime provinces, is a region of Eastern Canada consisting of three provinces: New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, and Prince Edward Island. The Maritimes had a population of 1,899,324 in 2021, which makes up 5.1% of ...

. Located in Mount Carleton Provincial Park, it is one of the highlights of the Canadian portion of the

International Appalachian Trail The International Appalachian Trail (IAT; , SIA) was originally a hiking trail which ran from Katahdin Woods and Waters National Monument, in Maine, through New Brunswick, to the Gaspé Peninsula of Quebec, after which it followed a ferry route ...

. Mount Carleton is also part of the eighth and final section of the Nepisiguit Mi'gmaq Trail. The mountain was named after

Thomas Carleton General Thomas Carleton ( 1735 – 2 February 1817) was an Irish-born British Army officer who was promoted to colonel during the American Revolutionary War after relieving the siege of Quebec in 1776. After the war, he was appointed as Lie ...

, New Brunswick's first

lieutenant governor A lieutenant governor, lieutenant-governor, or vice governor is a high officer of state, whose precise role and rank vary by jurisdiction. Often a lieutenant governor is the deputy, or lieutenant, to or ranked under a governor — a "second-in-comm ...

, and forms part of the

Notre Dame Mountains The Notre Dame Mountains are a portion of the Appalachian Mountains, extending from the Gaspé Peninsula of Quebec to the Green Mountains (Vermont), Green Mountains of Vermont. The range runs from northeast to southwest, forming the southern ed ...

chain, which is visible on Map 24 of the NB Atlas. Before aerial surveillance was extensively used, a hut was maintained on the summit for fire-spotting in the remote north-central part of the province. A very similar hut was maintained on Big Bald Mountain.

Triangulation In trigonometry and geometry, triangulation is the process of determining the location of a point by forming triangles to the point from known points. Applications In surveying Specifically in surveying, triangulation involves only angle m ...

among these huts and other

fire tower A fire lookout tower, fire tower, or lookout tower is a tower that provides housing and protection for a person known as a " fire lookout", whose duty it is to search for wildfires in the wilderness. It is a small building, usually on the summit ...

s allowed the locations of

wildfires A wildfire, forest fire, or a bushfire is an unplanned and uncontrolled fire in an area of Combustibility and flammability, combustible vegetation. Depending on the type of vegetation present, a wildfire may be more specifically identified as a ...

to be determined quickly and easily. Mount Carleton is a

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 ...

, an erosional remnant of resistant

igneous rocks Igneous rock ( ), or magmatic rock, is one of the three main Rock (geology)#Classification, rock types, the others being sedimentary rock, sedimentary and metamorphic rock, metamorphic. Igneous rocks are formed through the cooling and solidifi ...

that remained after an ancient

Mesozoic The Mesozoic Era is the Era (geology), era of Earth's Geologic time scale, geological history, lasting from about , comprising the Triassic, Jurassic and Cretaceous Period (geology), Periods. It is characterized by the dominance of archosaurian r ...

peneplain 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 ...

surface was uplifted in the

Cenozoic The Cenozoic Era ( ; ) is Earth's current geological era, representing the last 66million years of Earth's history. It is characterized by the dominance of mammals, insects, birds and angiosperms (flowering plants). It is the latest of three g ...

to form a

plateau In geology and physical geography, a plateau (; ; : plateaus or plateaux), also called a high plain or a tableland, is an area of a highland consisting of flat terrain that is raised sharply above the surrounding area on at least one side. ...

, and subsequently dissected via millions of years of erosion by wind, water and glacial ice.Roland, A. E. 1982. Geological Background and Physiography of Nova Scotia. Halifax: The Nova Scotian Institute of Science.Mount Carleton Provincial Park
Retrieved on 2007-08-18 It consists of 400 million-year-old

rhyolitic Rhyolite ( ) is the most silica-rich of volcanic rocks. It is generally glassy or fine-grained (aphanitic) in texture, but may be porphyritic, containing larger mineral crystals ( phenocrysts) in an otherwise fine-grained groundmass. The miner ...

and

basalt Basalt (; ) is an aphanite, aphanitic (fine-grained) extrusive igneous rock formed from the rapid cooling of low-viscosity lava rich in magnesium and iron (mafic lava) exposed at or very near the planetary surface, surface of a terrestrial ...

ic volcanics.

References

External links

Mountains of New Brunswick Landforms of Northumberland County, New Brunswick Mountains of Canada under 1000 metres {{NorthumberlandCountyNB-geo-stub

See also

References

External links