Basin & Range Shenanigans
This western physiographic province is known for alternating long mountain ranges and flat basins, formed by crustal extension and normal faulting
What is the Basin and Range Province?
The process helps continents grow when crustal pieces or exotic Terrances get added along active plate margins
What is tectonic accretion?
This Wyoming park has the Snake River running through it and steep mountain faces that are tied to a major fault system
What is ran Teton National Park?
What is the actual surface where movement happens along a fault
What is the fault plane?
This fold arches upward, and the oldest rocks are found in the center
What is an anticline?
This fan-shaped deposit forms where streams leave the mountains, slow down and dump sediment at the base
What is an alluvial fan?
This is the old, stable interior part of a continent
What is the craton?
What is Death Valley National Park?
In fault terminology, this block of rock sits above the fault plane
What is the hanging wall?
These are cracks in rocks with no displacement
What are joints?
This flat, dry lakebed forms in desert basin and may briefly hold water after rain
What is a playa or playa lake?
This first stage of mountain building is when thick layers of sedimentary and or volcanic rocks pule up over time
What is the accumulation stage?
In Gran Teton National Park, the flat valley is the top of this wall that dropped down at least 30,000 feet and was later covered with sediment
What is the hanging wall?
In this type of fault, compression pushes rocks together and the hanging wall move upward
What is the reverse fault?
In this large fold structure, the oldest rocks are found in the center, kind of like an anticline in map view form.
What is a dome?
This Nevada national park is part of the Basin and Range and is home to Lehman Cave and bristlecone pines
What is Great Basin National Park?
This second stage is the actual mountain-building stage, when rocks get folded and faulted under pressure
What is the orogenic stage?
These two California national parks are in the Sierra Nevada Mountains and are known for the largest diameter trees in the world
What are Sequoia and Kings Canyon National Park?
This block of rocks sits below the fault plane, the one your feet would be on if you were walking through an old mine shaft
What is the footwall?
This visible step or cliff on the land surface can show where fault movement has happened
What is a fault scrap?
In Lehman Cave, the roof and floor are flat because the cave developed along these flat, horizontal rock surfaces
What are bedding planes?
After the main mountain-building stages the crust stretches, breaks into blocks, uplifts and erosion starts shaping the scenery
What is crustal extension, block faulting and uplift?
This flat, fertile valley in Great Smoky Mountains National Park is underlain by limestone, which made it a good place for settlers to live and farm
What is Cades Cove?
This type of fault forms when tension pulls rocks apart and the hanging wall drops down
What is a normal fault?
Normal and reverse faults belong to this fault family because movement happens vertically along dipping fault plane
What are dip-slip faults?