The Rockies formed 55 million to 80 million years ago during theLaramide orogeny, in which a number of plates began sliding underneath theNorth American plate. The angle ofsubduction was shallow, resulting in a broad belt of mountains running down western North America.[citation needed] Since then, further tectonic activity and erosion by glaciers have sculpted the Rockies into dramatic peaks and valleys. At the end of thelast ice age, humans began inhabiting the mountain range. After explorations of the range by Europeans, such asSir Alexander Mackenzie, and Anglo-Americans, such as theLewis and Clark Expedition, natural resources such as minerals and fur drove the initial economic exploitation of the mountains, although the range itself has never experienced a dense population.
Most of thehighest summits of the Rocky Mountains are inColorado, with the statehaving an average elevation in excess of 2,000 m (6,600 ft). Public parks and forest lands protect much of the mountain range, and they are popular tourist destinations, especially for hiking, camping, mountaineering, fishing, hunting, mountain biking, snowmobiling, skiing, and snowboarding.
The name of the mountains is acalque of anAlgonquian name, specificallyPlains Creeᐊᓯᓃᐘᒋᐩasinîwaciy (originally transcribedas-sin-wati), literally "rocky mountain / alp". The first mention of their present name by a European was in the journal ofJacques Legardeur de Saint-Pierre in 1752, where they were called "montagnes de Roche".[5][6] Another name given to the place by the Cree isᐊᓭᓂᐓᒉAseniwuche.
The Rocky Mountains are the easternmost portion of the expansiveNorth American Cordillera. They are often defined as stretching from theLiard River inBritish Columbia[7]: 13 south to the headwaters of thePecos River, a tributary of theRio Grande, in New Mexico. The Rockies vary in width from 110 to 480 kilometres (70 to 300 miles). The Rocky Mountains contain the highest peaks in central North America. The range's highest peak isMount Elbert in Colorado at 4,401 metres (14,440 feet) above sea level.Mount Robson in British Columbia, at 3,954 m (12,972 ft), is the highest peak in theCanadian Rockies.
Human population is not very dense in the Rockies, with an average of four people per square kilometer and few cities with over 50,000 people. However, the human population grew rapidly in the Rocky Mountain states between 1950 and 1990. The forty-year statewide increases in population range from 35% in Montana to about 150% in Utah and Colorado. The populations of several mountain towns and communities have doubled in the forty years 1972–2012.Jackson, Wyoming, increased 260%, from 1,244 to 4,472 residents, in those forty years.[9]
The Front Range of the Rocky Mountains nearDenver, Colorado
The rocks in the Rocky Mountains were formed before the mountains were raised by tectonic forces. The oldest rock is Precambrianmetamorphic rock that forms the core of the North American continent. There is alsoPrecambrian sedimentaryargillite, dating back to 1.7 billion years ago. During thePaleozoic, western North America lay underneath a shallow sea, which deposited many kilometers oflimestone anddolomite.[7]: 76
In the southern Rockies, near present-day Colorado, these ancestral rocks were disturbed by mountain building approximately 300 million years ago, during thePennsylvanian. This mountain-building produced the Ancestral Rocky Mountains. They consisted largely of Precambrian metamorphic rock forced upward through layers of the limestone laid down in the shallow sea.[10] The mountains eroded throughout the late Paleozoic and earlyMesozoic, leaving extensive deposits ofsedimentary rock.
Terranes began colliding with the western edge of North America in theMississippian (approximately 350 million years ago), causing theAntler orogeny.[11] For 270 million years, the focus of the effects of plate collisions were near the edge of the North American Plate boundary, far to the west of the Rocky Mountain region.[11] It was not until 80 million years ago that these effects began reaching the Rockies.[12]
The current Rocky Mountains arose in theLaramide orogeny from between 80 million and 55 million years ago.[12][needs update?] For the Canadian Rockies, the mountain building is analogous to pushing a rug on a hardwood floor:[13]: 78 the rug bunches up and forms wrinkles (mountains). In Canada, the terranes and subduction are the foot pushing the rug, the ancestral rocks are the rug, and theCanadian Shield in the middle of the continent is the hardwood floor.[13]: 78
Further south, an unusual subduction may have caused the growth of the Rocky Mountains in the United States, where theFarallon Plate dove at a shallow angle below theNorth American Plate. This low angle moved the focus of melting and mountain building much farther inland than the normal 300 to 500 km (200 to 300 mi). Scientists hypothesize that the shallow angle of the subducting plate increased the friction and other interactions with the thick continental mass above it. Tremendousthrusts piled sheets of crust on top of each other, building the broad, high Rocky Mountain range.[14]
The current southern Rockies were forced upwards through the layers of Pennsylvanian andPermian sedimentary remnants of the Ancestral Rocky Mountains.[15] Such sedimentary remnants were often tilted at steep angles along the flanks of the modern range; they are now visible in many places throughout the Rockies, and are shown along theDakota Hogback, an early Cretaceous sandstone formation running along the eastern flank of the modern Rockies.
Just after the Laramide orogeny, the Rockies were likeTibet: a high plateau, probably 6,000 m (20,000 ft) above sea level. In the last 60 million years,erosion stripped away the high rocks, revealing the ancestral rocks beneath, and forming the current landscape of the Rockies.[13]: 80–81
Periods of glaciation occurred from thePleistocene Epoch (1.8 million – 70,000 years ago) to theHolocene Epoch (fewer than 11,000 years ago). These ice ages left their mark on the Rockies, forming extensiveglacial landforms, such as U-shaped valleys andcirques. Recent glacial episodes included theBull Lake Glaciation, which began about 150,000 years ago, and thePinedale Glaciation, which perhaps remained at full glaciation until 15,000–20,000 years ago.[16]
All of these geological processes exposed a complex set of rocks at the surface. For example, volcanic rock from thePaleogene andNeogene periods (66 million – 2.6 million years ago) occurs in the San Juan Mountains and in other areas. Millennia of severe erosion in theWyoming Basin transformed intermountain basins into a relatively flat terrain. TheTetons and other north-central ranges contain folded and faulted rocks of Paleozoic andMesozoic age draped above cores ofProterozoic andArchean igneous and metamorphic rocks ranging in age from 1.2 billion (e.g., Tetons) to more than 3.3 billion years (Beartooth Mountains).[9]
There are a wide range of environmental factors in the Rocky Mountains. The Rockies range in latitude between the Liard River in British Columbia (at 59° N) and the Rio Grande in New Mexico (at 35° N). Prairie occurs at or below 550 metres (1,800 ft), while the highest peak in the range isMount Elbert at 4,400 metres (14,440 ft). Precipitation ranges from 250 millimetres (10 in) per year in the southern valleys[17] to 1,500 millimetres (60 in) per year locally in the northern peaks.[18] Average January temperatures can range from −7 °C (20 °F) in Prince George, British Columbia, to 6 °C (43 °F) inTrinidad, Colorado.[19] Therefore, there is no single monolithic ecosystem for the entire Rocky Mountain Range.
Instead, ecologists divide the Rockies into a number ofbiotic zones. Each zone is defined by whether it can support trees and the presence of one or moreindicator species. Two zones that do not support trees are the Plains and theAlpine tundra. TheGreat Plains lie to the east of the Rockies and is characterized by prairie grasses (below roughly 550 m or 1,800 ft). Alpine tundra occurs in regions above the tree-line for the Rocky Mountains, which varies from 3,700 m (12,000 ft) in New Mexico to 760 m (2,500 ft) at the northern end of the Rockies (near the Yukon).[19]
Bighorn sheep (such as this lamb inAlberta) have declined dramatically since European-American settlement of the mountains
In the U.S. portion of the mountain range,apex predators such as grizzly bears and wolf packs had beenextirpated from their original ranges, but have partially recovered due to conservation measures andreintroduction. Other recovering species include thebald eagle and theperegrine falcon.[9]
Since the last great ice age, the Rocky Mountains were home first toindigenous peoples including theApache,Arapaho,Bannock,Blackfoot,Cheyenne,Coeur d'Alene,Kalispel,Crow Nation,Flathead,Shoshone,Sioux,Ute,Kutenai (Ktunaxa in Canada),Sekani,Dunne-za, and others. Paleo-Indians hunted the now-extinctmammoth andancient bison (an animal 20% larger than modern bison) in the foothills and valleys of the mountains. Like the modern tribes that followed them, Paleo-Indians probably migrated to the plains in fall and winter for bison and to the mountains in spring and summer for fish, deer, elk, roots, and berries. In Colorado, along with the crest of the Continental Divide, rock walls that Native Americans built for driving game date back 5,400–5,800 years. A growing body of scientific evidence indicates that indigenous people had significant effects on mammal populations by hunting and on vegetation patterns through deliberate burning.[9]
Recent human history of the Rocky Mountains is one of more rapid change. The Spanish explorerFrancisco Vázquez de Coronado—with a group of soldiers and missionaries marched into the Rocky Mountain region from the south in 1540.[21] In 1610, the Spanish founded the city ofSanta Fe, the oldest continuous seat of government in the United States, at the foot of the Rockies in present-day New Mexico. The introduction of the horse, metal tools, rifles, new diseases, and different cultures profoundly changed the Native American cultures. Native American populations were extirpated from most of their historical ranges by disease, warfare, habitat loss (eradication of the bison), and continued assaults on their culture.[9]
In 1739, Frenchfur traders Pierre and Paul Mallet, while journeying through the Great Plains, discovered a range of mountains at the headwaters of thePlatte River, which localAmerican Indian tribes called the "Rockies", becoming the first Europeans to report on this uncharted mountain range.[22]
Sir Alexander Mackenzie in 1800
Sir Alexander Mackenzie (1764 – March 11, 1820) became the first European to cross the Rocky Mountains in 1793.[23] He found the upper reaches of the Fraser River and reached the Pacific coast of what is now Canada on July 20 of that year, completing the first recorded transcontinental crossing of North America north of Mexico.[24] He arrived atBella Coola, British Columbia, where he first reached saltwater at South Bentinck Arm, an inlet of the Pacific Ocean.
TheLewis and Clark Expedition (1804–1806) was the first scientific reconnaissance of the Rocky Mountains.[25] Specimens were collected for contemporary botanists, zoologists, and geologists. The expedition was said to have paved the way to (and through) the Rocky Mountains for European-Americans from the East, although Lewis and Clark met at least 11 European-American mountain men during their travels.[9]
Mountain men, primarily French, Spanish, and British, roamed the Rocky Mountains from 1720 to 1800 seeking mineral deposits and furs. The fur-tradingNorth West Company establishedRocky Mountain House as a trading post in what is now theRocky Mountain Foothills of present-dayAlberta in 1799, and their business rivals theHudson's Bay Company established Acton House nearby.[26] These posts served as bases for most European activity in the Canadian Rockies in the early 19th century. Among the most notable are the expeditions ofDavid Thompson, who followed the Columbia River to the Pacific Ocean.[27] On his 1811 expedition, he camped at the junction of the Columbia River and the Snake River and erected a pole and notice claiming the area for the United Kingdom and stating the intention of the North West Company to build a fort at the site.[28]
By theAnglo-American Convention of 1818, which established the49th parallel north as the international boundary west fromLake of the Woods to the "Stony Mountains",[29] the UK and the US agreed to what has since been described as "joint occupancy" of lands further west to the Pacific Ocean. Resolution of the territorial and treaty issues, theOregon dispute, was deferred until a later time.
In 1819, Spain ceded their rights north of the 42nd Parallel to the United States, though these rights did not include possession and also included obligations to Britain and Russia concerning their claims in the same region.
Negotiations between the United Kingdom and the United States over the next few decades failed to settle upon a compromise boundary and theOregon Dispute became important in geopolitical diplomacy between the British Empire and the new American Republic. In 1841,James Sinclair, Chief Factor of the Hudson's Bay Company, guided some 200 settlers from theRed River Colony west to bolster settlement aroundFort Vancouver in an attempt to retain theColumbia District for Britain. The party crossed the Rockies into theColumbia Valley, a region of the Rocky Mountain Trench near present-dayRadium Hot Springs, British Columbia, then traveled south. Despite such efforts, in 1846, Britain ceded all claim to Columbia District lands south of the 49th parallel to the United States; as resolution to theOregon boundary dispute by theOregon Treaty.[30]
Thousands passed through the Rocky Mountains on theOregon Trail beginning in the 1840s.[31] TheMormons began settling near theGreat Salt Lake in 1847.[32] From 1859 to 1864, gold was discovered in Colorado, Idaho, Montana, and British Columbia, sparking severalgold rushes bringing thousands of prospectors and miners to explore every mountain and canyon and to create the Rocky Mountains' first major industry. The Idaho gold rush alone produced more gold than the California and Alaska gold rushes combined and was important in the financing of theUnion Army during theAmerican Civil War. Thetranscontinental railroad was completed in 1869,[33] andYellowstone National Park was established as the world's first national park in 1872.[34] Meanwhile, a transcontinental railroad in Canada was originally promised in 1871. Though political complications pushed its completion to 1885, theCanadian Pacific Railway eventually followed theKicking Horse andRogers Passes to the Pacific Ocean.[35] Canadian railway officials also convincedParliament to set aside vast areas of the Canadian Rockies asJasper,Banff,Yoho, andWaterton Lakes National Parks, laying the foundation for a tourism industry which thrives to this day. Glacier National Park (MT) was established with a similar relationship to tourism promotions by theGreat Northern Railway.[36] While settlers filled the valleys and mining towns, conservation and preservation ethics began to take hold. U.S.President Benjamin Harrison established several forest reserves in the Rocky Mountains in 1891–1892. In 1905, U.S. PresidentTheodore Roosevelt extended theMedicine Bow Forest Reserve to include the area now managed asRocky Mountain National Park. Economic development began to center on mining,forestry, agriculture, andrecreation, as well as on the service industries that support them. Tents and camps became ranches and farms, forts and train stations became towns, and some towns became cities.[9]
Economic resources of the Rocky Mountains are varied and abundant. Minerals found in the Rocky Mountains include significant deposits of copper, gold, lead,molybdenum, silver,tungsten, andzinc. The Wyoming Basin and several smaller areas contain significant reserves of coal, natural gas,oil shale, and petroleum. For example, theClimax mine, nearLeadville, Colorado, was the largest producer of molybdenum in the world. Molybdenum is used in heat-resistant steel in such things as cars and planes. The Climax mine employed over 3,000 workers. TheCoeur d'Alene mine of northern Idaho produces silver, lead, and zinc. Canada's largest coal mines are nearFernie, British Columbia andSparwood, British Columbia; additional coal mines exist nearHinton, Alberta, and in the Northern Rockies surroundingTumbler Ridge, British Columbia.[9]
Abandoned mines with their wakes of mine tailings and toxic wastes dot the Rocky Mountain landscape. In one major example, eighty years of zinc mining profoundly polluted the river and bank nearEagle River in north-central Colorado. High concentrations of the metal carried by spring runoff harmedalgae,moss, andtrout populations. An economic analysis of mining effects at this site revealed declining property values, degraded water quality, and the loss of recreational opportunities. The analysis also revealed that cleanup of the river could yield $2.3 million in additional revenue from recreation. In 1983, the former owner of the zinc mine was sued by the Colorado Attorney General for the $4.8 million cleanup costs; five years later, ecological recovery was considerable.[9][37]
The Rocky Mountains contain severalsedimentary basins that are rich incoalbed methane. Coalbed methane is natural gas that arises from coal, either through bacterial action or through exposure to high temperature. Coalbed methane supplies 7 percent of the natural gas used in the U.S. The largest coalbed methane sources in the Rocky Mountains are in theSan Juan Basin in New Mexico and Colorado and thePowder River Basin in Wyoming. These two basins are estimated to contain 38 trillion cubic feet of gas. Coalbed methane can be recovered by dewatering the coal bed, and separating the gas from the water; or injecting water to fracture the coal to release the gas (so-calledhydraulic fracturing).[38]
Agriculture and forestry are major industries. Agriculture includes dryland and irrigated farming and livestock grazing. Livestock are frequently moved between high-elevation summerpastures and low-elevation winter pastures, a practice known astranshumance.[9]
Every year the scenic areas of the Rocky Mountains draw millions of tourists.[9] The main language of the Rocky Mountains is English. But there are also linguistic pockets of Spanish and indigenous languages.
People from all over the world visit the sites to hike, camp, or engage inmountain sports.[9][39] In the summer season, examples of tourist attractions are:
Glacier National Park in Montana and Waterton Lakes National Park in Alberta border each other and are collectively known asWaterton-Glacier International Peace Park.
^abMadole, Richard F.; Bradley, William C.; Loewenherz, Deborah S.; Ritter, Dale F.; Rutter, Nathaniel W.; Thorn, Colin E. (1987)."Rocky Mountains". In Graf, William L. (ed.).Geomorphic Systems of North America. Decade of North American Geology. Vol. 2 (Centennial Special ed.).Geological Society of America (published January 1, 1987). pp. 211–257.doi:10.1130/DNAG-CENT-v2.211.ISBN9780813754147. RetrievedJune 22, 2021.
^Pierce, K.L. (1979).History and dynamics of glaciation in the northern Yellowstone National Park area. Washington, DC: U.S. Geological Survey. pp. 1 90. Professional Paper 729-F.
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