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ChromaDepth
Section II: Parts of the United States
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Appalachian Mountains
Description: The Appalachian Mountains have been around for several hundred million years, about 10 times longer than the Rockies
Things to Notice:
- Pittsburgh is near the top, just over halfway from the left edge to the right edge. You can see where three rivers appear to meet. Actually,
the Allegheny comes in from the top, the Monongahela comes in from the southeast, and they combine to become the Ohio River, which exits to the west.
- Millions of tears ago, North America’s east coast was joined to the northwest coast of Africa in a large “supercontinent”.
- Millions of years before that, they were separate continents that collided, just as India is colliding with Asia and is pushing up the Himalayas.
The Appalachians are the ancient scar of that collision, and once were as high as the Himalayas are now.
- The overall shape of the Appalachians is a series of rolling ridges, much like a wrinkled rug. These wrinkles produce the Valley and Ridge province of
Pennsylvania and adjacent states. Such “wrinkles” suggest that the deformation is not extreme. This is different from the more extreme deformation in places
like California and India. Similar types of Valley and Ridge deformation are present in ranges such as the Zagros Mountains of Iran.
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