Everything about The Ridge-and-valley Appalachians totally explained
The
Ridge-and-Valley Appalachians, also called the
Ridge and Valley Province or the
Valley and Ridge Appalachians, are a
physiographic province of the larger
Appalachian division and are also a belt within the
Appalachian Mountains extending from northern
New Jersey westward into
Pennsylvania and southward into
Maryland,
West Virginia,
Virginia,
Tennessee, and
Alabama. They form a broad arc between the
Blue Ridge Mountains and the
Appalachian Plateau physiographic province (the
Allegheny and
Cumberland Plateaus).
These mountains are characterized by long, even
ridges, with long, continuous
valleys in between. From a great enough altitude, they look almost like
corduroy, except that the widths of the valleys are somewhat variable and ridges sometimes meet in a vee.
Geography
The two great mountain ranges constituting the middle portion of the Ridge and Valley Province are the
Alleghenies and the
Cumberlands.
The eastern edge of the Ridge and Valley region is marked by the
Great Appalachian Valley, which lies just west of the
Blue Ridge. The western side of the Ridge and Valley region is marked by steep escarpments such as the
Allegheny Front, the
Cumberland Mountains, and
Walden Ridge.
Geology
These curious formations are the remnants of an ancient fold-and-thrust belt, west of the mountain core that formed in the
Alleghenian orogeny (Stanley, 421-2). Here, strata have been folded westward, and forced over massive
thrust faults; there's little
metamorphism, and no igneous intrusion.(Stanley, 421-2) The ridges represent the edges of the erosion-resistant strata, and the valleys portray the absence of the more
erodible strata. Smaller streams have developed their valleys following the lines of the more easily eroded strata. But a few major rivers, such as the
Delaware River, the
Susquehanna River, and the
Potomac River are evidently older than the present mountains, having cut
water gaps that are perpendicular to hard strata ridges. The evidence point to a wearing down of the entire region (the original mountains) to a low level with little relief, so that major rivers were flowing in unconsolidated sediments that were unaffected by the underlying rock structure. Then the region was uplifted slowly enough that the rivers were able to maintain their course, cutting through the ridges as they developed.
Valleys may be
synclinal valleys or
anticlinal valleys.
These mountains are at their highest development in central Pennsylvania, a phenomenon termed the
Pennsylvania climax.
Further Information
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