What are the important geographic features of the Basin and Range region?

The Basin and Range Province is a vast physiographic region covering much of the inland Western United States and northwestern Mexico. It is defined by unique basin and range topography, characterized by abrupt changes in elevation, alternating between narrow faulted mountain chains and flat arid valleys or basins.

What geographic features are in the Basin and Range?

Basin and Range topography is characterized by alternating valleys and mountainous areas, oriented in a north-south, linear direction. The entire region, including all of Nevada, southeastern California, and southeastern Oregon, consists of high mountain ranges (mostly running north-south) alternating with low valleys.

What is in the Basin and Range region?

Basin and Range Province, arid physiographic province occupying much of the western and southwestern part of the United States. The region comprises almost all of Nevada, the western half of Utah, southeastern California, and the southern part of Arizona and extends into northwestern Mexico.

Why is the Great Basin important?

The Great Basin is particularly noted for its internal drainage system, in which precipitation falling on the surface leads eventually to closed valleys and does not reach the sea.

How did the Basin and Range province of Nevada Utah and southeastern California form?

Along these roughly north-south-trending faults mountains were uplifted and valleys down-dropped, producing the distinctive alternating pattern of linear mountain ranges and valleys of the Basin and Range province.

What is a Basin and Range geology?

In geology, a basin is defined as a bounded area where the rock within the boundaries dips inward toward the center. By contrast, a range is a single line of mountains or hills forming a connected chain of land higher than the surrounding area. When combined, the two make up basin and range topography.

What is the climate in Basin and Range region?

Temperature: Summer temperatures in the Southern Basin and Range often measure 100 degrees F or more. Winter temperatures are mild, with few nights falling below freezing.

What is a basin in geography?

BASINS ARE LARGE-SCALE depressions in the land surface or seafloor. Their sides may dip gently or steeply, but their bottoms are always wider than they are deep. Streams flowing into basins often fill their floors with sediments.

What causes basin and range topography?

The basins (valleys) and ranges (mountains) are being created by ongoing tension in the region, pulling in an east-west direction. Over most of the last 30 million years, movement of hot mantle beneath the region caused the surface to dome up and then partially collapse under its own weight, as it pulled apart.

How did the Basin and Range landscape form?

Basin and range topography is characterized by alternating parallel mountain ranges and valleys. It is a result of crustal extension due to mantle upwelling, gravitational collapse, crustal thickening, or relaxation of confining stresses.

What is the plate tectonic setting that formed the mountains of the Basin and Range province and what type of faulting has this resulted in?

It was buoyant, making the subduction happen with a shallow angle. Eventually, the mid-ocean ridge itself was subducted, starting around 30 Ma. This event caused two important tectonic features to form: the San Andreas Fault System and the Basin and Range Geologic Province.

What are the characteristics of the coastal range?

The Coast Ranges are gently to steeply sloping low mountains underlain by shale, sandstone, and igneous and volcanic rocks. Elevations range from 500 to 2,500 ft (150 to 800 m); some peaks rise to 5,000 ft (1,500 m). Stream valleys are narrow and widely spaced.

Where is the Coastal Range region?

Coast Ranges, also called Pacific Coast Ranges, segment of the Pacific mountain system of western North America, consisting of a series of ranges in the United States running parallel to the Pacific coast for more than 1,000 miles (1,600 km) from west-central Washington in the north to the Transverse Ranges of …

What plants are in the Coastal Range?

Common coastal plants include California poppies, lupine, redwood trees, hawkbits, California beach aster, ox-eye daisy, horsetail, ferns, pine and redwood trees, California oatgrass, native flowering bulbs, the herb self-heal, buckwheat, sagebrush, coyote bush, yarrow, sand verbena, cordgrass, pickleweed, bullrushes, …

What are the mountain ranges in the coastal region?

The Coast Ranges of California span 400 miles (644 km) from Del Norte or Humboldt County, California, south to Santa Barbara County. The other three coastal California mountain ranges are the Transverse Ranges, Peninsular Ranges and the Klamath Mountains.

Where are the Coastal Range mountains?

The Coast Mountains are a large mountain range located along the west coast of North America. The range begins in the Yukon and extends south through the Alaskan Panhandle and along the coast of British Columbia, south of the Fraser River.

What are the main geographical features of the Pacific Coastal Range?

The Coast Ranges are rugged, geologically young mountains formed by faulting and folding and are composed mainly of granitic rock; the northern third is glaciated. N of San Francisco the ranges are humid and thickly forested; the southern parts are dry and covered with brush and grass.

What states are in the Coastal Range region?

The Coastal Range region, also known as the Coast Range or the Pacific Coast Range, is an ecological area that traces the coasts of Washington, Oregon and northern California. Visitors to the area can glimpse many examples of the region’s distinctive flora, fauna and geological formations.

Why are mountain ranges found on the coast of continents?

At convergent boundaries where oceanic crust and continental crust collides, the mountain ranges can therefor form right at the coastline. Vulcanism is also important in the process as volcanoes forms where oceanic crust is subducted under the continental plates.

What two continents have the similar features of mountain ranges?

In his continental drift theory, Wegener suggested that the similar mountain ranges that were formed in Africa and South America that was once connected were later separated due to continental drift.

How are mountain ranges formed by tectonic plates?

Mountains form where two continental plates collide. Since both plates have a similar thickness and weight, neither one will sink under the other. Instead, they crumple and fold until the rocks are forced up to form a mountain range. As the plates continue to collide, mountains will get taller and taller.

What geologic event causes the formation of mountain ranges?

The world’s tallest mountain ranges form when pieces of Earth’s crust—called plates—smash against each other in a process called plate tectonics, and buckle up like the hood of a car in a head-on collision. The Himalaya in Asia formed from one such massive wreck that started about 55 million years ago.

What geologic features could result out of this plate boundary?

Deep ocean trenches, volcanoes, island arcs, submarine mountain ranges, and fault lines are examples of features that can form along plate tectonic boundaries. Volcanoes are one kind of feature that forms along convergent plate boundaries, where two tectonic plates collide and one moves beneath the other.

What are geologic events?

Definition: An identifiable event during which one or more geological processes act to modify geological entities.

Why are faults and folding generally associated with mountain ranges?

Why are faults and folding generally associated with mountain ranges? When plates collide or undergo subduction (that is – ride one over another), the plates tend to buckle and fold, forming mountains. Most of the major continental mountain ranges are associated with thrusting and folding or orogenesis.

In what region of the Philippines can the most mountain ranges be found?

The Cordillera Central, more commonly known as the Cordilleras, is a gigantic array of mountains dominating the whole western half of Northern Luzon. It is the largest of all the mountain ranges in the Philippines, constituting around a sixth of the entire land area of Luzon.

Where do mountain ranges occur in relationship to tectonic plates?

Mountains are “built up” through pressures on the Earth’s crust when plates collide. Where do mountain ranges occur in relationship to tectonic plates? Most form at the plate boundary edges because of collisions.