Mount Magazine, officially named Magazine Mountain, is the highest point of the

U.S. Interior Highlands The U.S. Interior Highlands is a mountainous region in the Central United States spanning northern and western Arkansas, southern Missouri, eastern Oklahoma, and extreme southeastern Kansas. The name is designated by the United States Ge ...

and the U.S. state of

Arkansas Arkansas ( ) is a landlocked state in the South Central United States. It is bordered by Missouri to the north, Tennessee and Mississippi to the east, Louisiana to the south, and Texas and Oklahoma to the west. Its name is from the O ...

, and is the site of

Mount Magazine State Park Mount Magazine State Park is a 2,234-acre park located in Logan County, Arkansas. Inhabited since the 1850s, Mount Magazine first became part of the Ouachita National Forest in 1938, was re-designated as part of the Ozark National Forest in 1941 ...

. It is a flat-topped mountain or mesa capped by hard rock and rimmed by precipitous cliffs. There are two summits atop the mountain: Signal Hill, which reaches , and Mossback Ridge, which reaches . Mount Magazine is often called "the highest point between the Alleghenies and the Rockies", however, there are mountains located in far west Texas, that exceed Mount Magazine in elevation and prominence.

Etymology

According to English botanist

Thomas Nuttall Thomas Nuttall (5 January 1786 – 10 September 1859) was an English botanist and zoologist who lived and worked in America from 1808 until 1841. Nuttall was born in the village of Long Preston, near Settle in the West Riding of Yorkshire and ...

, writing in 1819, French hunters named mountain "Magazine" or "Barn" (French ) because of its "peculiar form". However, today some scholars believe Nuttall may have been writing about nearby Mount Nebo, and what is today called Mount Magazine was labeled "Castete Mt" on Nuttall's maps.

Location

Mount Magazine is located due north of

Blue Mountain Lake Blue Mountain Lake may refer to: * Blue Mountain Lake (Arkansas), a reservoir in Arkansas * Blue Mountain Lake (New York lake), a lake in Hamilton County in the central Adirondacks, New York * Blue Mountain Lake (hamlet), New York Blue Mountain Lak ...

Logan County, Arkansas Logan County (formerly Sarber County) is a county located in the U.S. state of Arkansas. As of the 2010 census, the population was 22,353. Its two county seats are Booneville and Paris. History The Arkansas General Assembly defined the stat ...

, approximately east of the Arkansas-Oklahoma border. The most scenic route to the top is a drive along Highway 309 (also known as the Mount Magazine Scenic Byway) from

Havana Havana (; Spanish: ''La Habana'' ) is the capital and largest city of Cuba. The heart of the La Habana Province, Havana is the country's main port and commercial center.

. Many consider Mount Magazine to be part of the

Ouachita Mountains The Ouachita Mountains (), simply referred to as the Ouachitas, are a mountain range in western Arkansas and southeastern Oklahoma. They are formed by a thick succession of highly deformed Paleozoic strata constituting the Ouachita Fold and Thru ...

, though it is really part of the Arkansas River Valley. It lies within a southern extension of the Ozark National Forest despite being much closer to the Ouachita National Forest.

Climate

The climate is very different from the typical climate of the Arkansas state as temperatures remain 10 degrees cooler than normal temperatures in the valleys. The annual average temperature is 56 °F. The park gets 54 inches of rainfall every year, and due to the low clouds, there is fog and limited visibility all year for eight days each month.

Summer

The summer temperature very rarely reaches 100 degrees Fahrenheit on the mountaintop and the hottest average temperature during the summer in the park is 90 degrees Fahrenheit.

Winter

The mountain has limited forest due to the harsh weather during the wintertime. Normal conditions like frost, sleet, hail, snow, and freezing rain can cause the limbs on trees to snap. Higher up on the mountain, frost flowers, ice crystals, hoarfrost,

rime ice Rime ice forms when supercooled water liquid droplets freeze onto surfaces. Meteorologists distinguish between three basic types of ice forming on vertical and horizontal surfaces by deposition of supercooled water droplets. There are also inter ...

, and freezing fog can occur.

Geology

As the South American plate collided with the North American plate during the late

Paleozoic The Paleozoic (or Palaeozoic) Era is the earliest of three geologic eras of the Phanerozoic Eon. The name ''Paleozoic'' ( ;) was coined by the British geologist Adam Sedgwick in 1838 by combining the Greek words ''palaiós'' (, "old") and ...

, a major

foreland basin A foreland basin is a structural basin that develops adjacent and parallel to a mountain belt. Foreland basins form because the immense mass created by crustal thickening associated with the evolution of a mountain belt causes the lithosphere ...

, the Arkoma Basin, developed north of the

. Small grains of sediment that had filled the Arkoma Basin were compacted and cemented into sedimentary rock. As the land rose above sea level, small streams developed that eventually merged into the

Arkansas River The Arkansas River is a major tributary of the Mississippi River. It generally flows to the east and southeast as it traverses the U.S. states of Colorado, Kansas, Oklahoma, and Arkansas. The river's source basin lies in the western United ...

. After millions of years of erosion,

syncline In structural geology, a syncline is a fold with younger layers closer to the center of the structure, whereas an anticline is the inverse of a syncline. A synclinorium (plural synclinoriums or synclinoria) is a large syncline with superimpose ...

s like Mount Magazine have become the most positive topographic features; this phenomenon is the result of the rapid weathering of shales once sandstones were breached on the flanks of surrounding

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 t ...

s. Mount Magazine is a broad mesa composed of Pennsylvanian sedimentary rocks deposited in various shallow-water environments. Like many mountains in the western Arkansas River Valley, Mount Magazine is capped by the Savanna Formation, a sequence of

shale Shale is a fine-grained, clastic sedimentary rock formed from mud that is a mix of flakes of clay minerals (hydrous aluminium phyllosilicates, e.g. kaolin, Al2 Si2 O5( OH)4) and tiny fragments (silt-sized particles) of other minerals, especiall ...

siltstone Siltstone, also known as aleurolite, is a clastic sedimentary rock that is composed mostly of silt. It is a form of mudrock with a low clay mineral content, which can be distinguished from shale by its lack of fissility.Blatt ''et al.'' 1980, ...

, and

sandstone Sandstone is a clastic sedimentary rock composed mainly of sand-sized (0.0625 to 2 mm) silicate grains. Sandstones comprise about 20–25% of all sedimentary rocks. Most sandstone is composed of quartz or feldspar (both silicat ...

; the upper portion of this sequence is missing throughout most of Arkansas. The Savanna Formation is conformable with the underlying McAlester Formation, a sequence of shale, siltstone, sandstone, and a number of

coal Coal is a combustible black or brownish-black sedimentary rock, formed as rock strata called coal seams. Coal is mostly carbon with variable amounts of other elements, chiefly hydrogen, sulfur, oxygen, and nitrogen. Coal is formed when ...

beds. The McAlester Formation is conformable with the underlying Hartshorne Sandstone, a prominent ledge-former under favorable structural conditions. The Hartshorne Sandstone is unconformable with the underlying Atoka Formation. This unit has the largest areal extent of any of the

formations in Arkansas, extending as far north as the

Boston Mountains The Boston Mountains is a Level III ecoregion designated by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) in the U.S. states of Arkansas and Oklahoma. Part of the Ozarks, the Boston Mountains are a deeply dissected plateau. The ecoregion is steeper ...

, and is divided into upper, middle, and lower members.

Nature & Attractions

Mount Magazine promotes environment conservation through an Eco-friendly nature attraction which allows visitors to explore nature. It also consists of 18 campsites for nature-lovers. An annual butterfly festival is hosted each June in the Paris town square.

Animals

The park is home to many species including the shagreen snail, black bear,

white-tailed deer The white-tailed deer (''Odocoileus virginianus''), also known as the whitetail or Virginia deer, is a medium-sized deer native to North America, Central America, and South America as far south as Peru and Bolivia. It has also been introduced t ...

rufous-crowned sparrow The rufous-crowned sparrow (''Aimophila ruficeps'') is a small American sparrow. This passerine is primarily found across the Southwestern United States and much of the interior of Mexico, south to the transverse mountain range, and to the Pa ...

s (rare), and 94 of the 134 butterfly species of Arkansas. The most rare butterfly species is the Diana Fritillary.

Activities

Activities include the following: hiking, biking, bird watching, horseback riding, hang gliding, rappelling, rock climbing, sightseeing, and photography. ATV riding is also allowed as there is a guide to the activity.

References

External links

{{DEFAULTSORT:Magazine, Mount Highest points of U.S. states Protected areas of Logan County, Arkansas Mountains of Arkansas Ozark–St. Francis National Forest Landforms of Logan County, Arkansas