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1 Name pronunciation and
origin
2 Regions
3 Appalachian Trail
4 Appalachian peaks
5 Appalachian rivers
6 Geology
7 Flora and Fauna
8 Influence on History
9 References
10 Credits
The Bear Mountain Bridge in New York is part of the 140-km trek
the trail takes across New York State
The Appalachian Trail is a 3,500 kilometer (approx. 2,170 miles)
hiking trail that runs all the way north from Mount Katahdin
in Maine to Springer Mountain in Georgia, passing over or past a
large part of the Appalachian system.
The trail is currently protected along more than 99 percent of its
course by federal or state ownership of the land or by right-of-way.
Annually, more than 4,000 volunteers contribute over 175,000
hours of effort on the trail, an effort coordinated largely by the
Appalachian Trail Conservancy organization.
In the course of its journey, the trail follows the ridgeline of the Appalachian Mountains, crossing many of
its highest peaks, and running, with only a few exceptions, almost continuously through wilderness.
The International Appalachian Trail is a 1,100 kilometer (approx. 680 mile) hiking trail into Canada,
stretching north from Maine into New Brunswick and Quebec provinces. It is actually a separate trail, not
an official extension of the Appalachian Trail. An extension of the International Appalachian Trail, to
Newfoundland, is still under construction.
Appalachian peaks
The Appalachians have no ranges that reach great heights above the others. In every area the summits
rise to rather uniform heights, and none reaches the region of perpetual snow. The highest peaks in
Newfoundland rise to about 1,200 meters (approx. 4,000 feet). InMaine, Mount Katahdin rises to 1,600
meters (5,280 feet). Mount Washington, the highest summit in New Hampshire's "Presidential Range,"
extends above 1,900 meters (6,300 feet). The highest point in Vermont lies above 1,300 meters (4,300
feet); the top elevation in the Catskills is slightly lower.
Though mountains run throughout central Pennsylvania, none of them quite reaches 1,000 meters (3,300
feet). The highest point of the Blue Ridge in Virginia lies above 1,200 m (approx. 4,000 feet), while in West
Virginia, more than 150 peaks rise above 1, 200 meters, including Spruce Knob, the highest point in the
Allegheny Mountains (about 1,450 meters; 4,800 feet). North Carolina has eight peaks surpassing 1800 m.
Mount Mitchell in the Black Mountains is the crown of the whole Appalachian system, reaching an altitude
of 2,037 meters (6,684 feet). Clingman's Dome in the Smoky Mountains, on the Tennessee border, is 13
meters (43 feet) shorter.
The Appalachian mountain chain also includes plateaus that slope southward to the Atlantic Ocean in New
England, southeastward to the border of the eastern coastal plain of the central and southern Atlantic
states, and on the northwest, the Allegheny and Cumberland plateaus that incline toward the Great
Lakes and the interior plains.
Appalachian rivers
In spite of the existence of the Great Appalachian Valley, the master streams run transverse to the axis of
the system. The main watershed follows a tortuous course that crosses the mountainous belt just north of
the New River in Virginia. South of this point, the rivers head through the Blue Ridge and higher Unaka
Mountains, and receive important tributaries from the Great Valley. From there they traverse the
Cumberland Plateau in spreading gorges and then escape by way of the Cumberland and Tennessee rivers
to the Ohio and Mississippi basins, and thus to the Gulf of Mexico. In the central section, the rivers, rising in
or beyond the Valley Ridges, flow through great gorges known as water gaps to the Great Valley, and by
southeasterly courses across the Blue Ridge to tidal estuaries penetrating the coastal plain. In the northern
section the divides lie on the inland side of the mountainous belt, with the main lines of drainage running
from north to south.
Geology
Did you know?
The birth of the Appalachian Mountains predates the formation of the American continent
The Appalachians are very old mountains. A look at rocks exposed in today's mountains reveals elongated
belts of folded and thrust faulted marine sedimentary rocks, volcanic rocks, and slivers of ancient ocean
floor, which provides strong evidence that these rocks were deformed during tectonic plate collision. The
birth of the Appalachian ranges, estimated at 680 million years ago, marks the first of several mountainbuilding plate collisions that culminated in the construction of the supercontinent Pangaea with the
Appalachians near the center. Because North America and Africa were once connected, the Appalachians
form part of the same mountain chain as the Atlas Mountains of Morocco and Algeria.
During the middle Ordovician Period (about 495-440 million years ago), a change in plate motions set the
stage for the first Paleozoic mountain-building event known as the Taconic orogeny in North America. A
once-quiet area on the continental shelf changed to a very active plate boundary when a neighboring
oceanic plate, the Iapetus, collided with and began sinking beneath the North American continental crust.
With the birth of this new subduction zone, the early Appalachians were born. Along the continental
margin, volcanoesgrew, coincident with the initiation of subduction. Thrust faulting uplifted and warped
older sedimentary rock laid down on the former shelf. As mountains rose, erosion began to wear them
down. Streams carried rock debris downslope to be deposited in nearby lowlands. The Taconic orogeny was
just the first of a series of mountain-building plate collisions that contributed to the formation of the
Appalachians.
Generalized east-to-west cross section through the
central Hudson Valley region. USGS
By the end of the Mesozoic era, the Appalachians had
been eroded to an almost flat plain. It was not until the
region was uplifted during the Cenozoic Era that the
distinctive present topography formed. Uplift rejuvenated
the streams, which rapidly responded by cutting
downward into the ancient bedrock. Some streams
flowed along weak layers that define the folds and faults
created many millions of years earlier. Other streams
downcut so rapidly that they cut right across the resistant
folded rocks of the mountain core, carving canyons
across rock layers and geologic structures.
The Appalachian Mountains contain major deposits of anthracite coal as well as bituminous coal. In folded
mountains, coal is found in metamorphosed form as anthracite in the Coal Region of northeastern
Pennsylvania. The bituminous coal fields of western Pennsylvania, southeastern Ohio, eastern Kentucky,
and West Virginia contain the sedimentary form. Some plateaus of the Appalachians contain metallic
minerals such as iron and zinc.
Flora and Fauna
Much of the region is covered with forests yielding quantities of valuable timber, especially in Canada and
northern New England. The most valuable trees for lumber are spruce, white pine, hemlock, juniper, birch,
ash, maple, and basswood. Excepting pine and hemlock, as well as poplar, all these woods are used for the
manufacture of paper. In the central and southern parts of the belt, oak and hickoryconstitute valuable
hard woods, and certain varieties of the former furnish quantities of tanning bark. The tulip-tree produces a
good clear lumber known as white wood or poplar, and is also a source of pulp. In the southern parts on
the Appalachians, both white and yellow pine abound. Many flowering and fruit-bearing shrubs of the
heath family add to the beauty of the mountainous districts, andrhododendron and kalmia often form
impenetrable thickets.
Bears, wild cats (lynx), and wolves haunt the more remote vastness of the
mountains. Fox and deer abound and are found in many districts, as are moose in the northern reaches.
Influence on History
For a century the Appalachians were a barrier to the westward expansion of the British colonies. The
continuity of the mountain system, the bewildering multiplicity of its succeeding ridges, the tortuous
courses and roughness of its transverse passes, and a heavy forest with dense undergrowth all conspired
to hold the settlers on the seaward-sloping plateaus and coastal plains. Only by way of the Hudson
River and Mohawk valleys, and around the southern end of the mountains were there easy routes to the
interior of the country. These were long closed by hostile native tribes, French colonists to the north, and
Spanish colonists to the south.
In eastern Pennsylvania, the Great Valley of the Susquehanna River was accessible through a broad natural
gateway. The Lebanon Valley settled German Moravians, whose descendants even now retain the peculiar
patois known as Pennsylvania Dutch. These pioneers were actually latecomers to the New World forced to
the frontier to find unclaimed lands. Followed by colonists of both German and Scotch-Irish origin, they
worked their way southward and soon occupied all of the Virginia Valley and the upper reaches of the
tributaries of the Tennessee. By 1755 the obstacle to westward expansion had been thus reduced by half.
Outposts of the British colonists had penetrated the Allegheny and Cumberland plateaus, threatening
French monopoly in the intermountain region, and conflict became inevitable. Making a common cause
against the French to determine the control of the Ohio valley, the unsuspected strength of the colonists
was revealed, and the successful ending of the French and Indian War extended Great Britain's territory to
the Mississippi. To this strength the geographic isolation enforced by the Appalachians had been a prime
contributor. The confinement of the colonies between an ocean and a mountain wall led to the fullest
occupation of the coastal border of the continent, which was possible under existing conditions of
agriculture, conducive to a community of purpose, a political and commercial solidarity, which would not
otherwise have been developed. As early as 1700 it was possible to ride by horse or stagecoach from
Portland, Maine, to southern Virginia, sleeping each night at some comfortable village.
In contrast to this complete industrial occupation, the French territory was held by a small and very
scattered population, its extent and openness adding materially to the difficulties of a disputed tenure.
Bearing the brunt of this contest as they did, the colonies were undergoing preparation for the subsequent
struggle with the home government. Unsupported by shipping, the American armies fought toward the sea
with the mountains at their back protecting them against Indians leagued with the British. The few
settlements beyond the mountains could provide for their own defense by virtue of being precluded from
general participation in the conflict due to their geographical position.
Before the French and Indian War, the Appalachian Mountains lay on the indeterminate boundary between
Britain's colonies along the Atlantic and French areas centered in the Mississippi basin. After the French
and Indian War, the Proclamation of 1763 restricted settlement for Great Britain's thirteen original colonies
in North America to east of the summit line of the mountains (except in the northern regions where the
Great Lakes formed the boundary). Although the line was adjusted several times to take frontier
settlements into account and was impossible to enforce as law, it was strongly resented by backcountry
settlers throughout the Appalachians. The Proclamation Line can be seen as one of the grievances which
led to the American Revolutionary War. Many frontier settlers held that the defeat of the French opened
the land west of the mountains to English settlement, only to find settlement barred by the British King's
proclamation. The backcountry settlers who fought in the Illinois campaign of George Rogers Clark were
motivated to secure their settlement of Kentucky.
With the formation of the United States, an important first phase of westward expansion in the late
eighteenth century and early nineteenth century consisted of the migration of European-descended
settlers westward across the mountains into the Ohio Valley through the Cumberland Gap and other
mountain passes. The Erie Canal, finished in 1825, formed the first route through the Appalachians that
was capable of large amounts of commerce.
References
Brooks, Maurice. 1965. Appalachians. Houghton Mifflin. ISBN 978-0395074589
Caudill, Harry M. 2001. Night Comes to the Cumberlands. Jesse Stuart Foundation. ISBN 978-1931672009
Constantz, George. 2004. Hollows, Peepers, and Highlanders: an Appalachian Mountain Ecology. West
Virginia University Press.ISBN 978-0937058862
Frick-Ruppert, Jennifer. 2010. Mountain Nature: A Seasonal Natural History of the Southern Appalachians.
The University of North Carolina Press. ISBN 978-0807871164
Weidensaul, Scott. 2000. Mountains of the Heart: A Natural History of the Appalachians. Fulcrum
Publishing. ISBN 978-1555911393
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