Where are the Cordillera mountains? Cordillera Mountains: description

Cordilleras - mountains, a huge system of which occupies the western edge of the continent of North America. They stretched for about 7 thousand kilometers. Cordilleras are mountains characterized by a wide variety of natural conditions. A number of features are characterized by them, and this determines their uniqueness among the other mountain systems of our planet.

General characteristics of the Cordillera

Where are the Cordillera mountains? They are predominantly elongated in the submeridional direction. Within the five orotectonic belts of different ages, these mountains are formed. Cordilleras have a large proportion of highlands (2,5-3 thousand and more meters above sea level). They have active volcanism and high seismicity. The great extent of these mountains from north to south led to the presence here of a multitude of spectra of altitude zonality. Cordilleras - mountains formed at the junction between lithospheric plates. The border between them almost coincides with the shore line.

Composition Cordillera

The third part of the whole continent is covered by a mountain fold-block system. It has a width of 800-1600 km. It includes mountain plateaus, intermontane basins, ridges, as well as volcanic plateaus and mountains. Young deformations, volcanism, denudations underwent the Cordilleras, which determined their present appearance and disguised the many geological structures that appeared earlier. The mountain system is very heterogeneous both in the transverse and in the longitudinal direction.

More about the Cordillera building

Asymmetric is the structure of the surface of the continent, where the Cordillera mountains lie. They occupy the western part of it, the eastern part - low mountains and vast plains. The western part is located at an altitude of about 1700 meters, and the eastern part - 200-300 m. 720 meters is the average height of the continent.

Cordilleras are mountains that have a series of mountain arcs that are stretched mainly in the direction from the north-west to the southeast. From the city of Mackenzie, hr. Brooks, the Rockies consists of an eastern arc. An intermittent belt formed from inner plateaus and a plateau is located to the west of these ridges. 1-2 thousand meters is their height. Cordilleras are mountains that include the following plateaus and plateaus: the Yukon plateau, the Colombian plateau and the plateau of British Columbia, the Great Basin, the Colorado plateau, the plateau and the volcanic plateau of the Mexican Highlands (its inner part). For the most part, they represent an alternation of basins, ridges and flat table surfaces.

The highest mountain

Cordillera from the western part are marked by the system of the highest ridges. This is the Aleutian Range, the chain of the Aleutian Islands, the Alaska Range. The latter reaches an altitude of 6,193 meters. This is McKinley, pictured above is the highest mountain. The Cordillera is a system that also includes the Cascade Mountains, the Canadian Coastal Range, the Western Sierra Madre and the Sierra Nevada in the western part, as well as the Transverse Volcanic Sierra with the Orizaba volcano (5700 meters)

To the west of them, the height decreases. Cordilleras are mountains that smoothly pass into the flat part of the continent. It is occupied in the west by either bays (California, Puget Sound, Cook), or lowlands (the California valley, the valley of the Willamette River). This coast of the continent is formed by the ridges of St. Elijah, Chugachsky, Kenai, the island range of Canada, as well as the Coastal ridges of the USA. The chains of the Cordillera south of the Mexican Highlands are forked. To the east, one of them deviates, forming the islands of the West Indies and underwater ridges, after which it passes to the Venezuelan Andes. The second half extends through the Panama and Tehuantepec isthmus to the Colombian Andes.

What is the reason for the diversity of the mountains?

It is associated with the different age of the land areas, as well as the history of their development. The continent did not immediately form in its present form. The Cordillera mountains in today's form arose due to various processes that occurred at different times on the continent.

For the Laurentian Upland, marked by the most ancient geological structures, relief surfaces are characterized by equalization surfaces, the formation of which began at the beginning of the Paleozoic. The undulating surface of the present elevation was caused by different resistance of rocks to denudation, as well as uneven tectonic movement. The lowering of the central part of the territory caused a covering Quaternary glaciation, because of which the basins of the modern Hudson Bay were formed. In addition, under its influence, there was accumulation of water-glacial and moraine deposits, which formed a type of relief (moraine-hilly).

The Great and Central Plains belong to the type of beds. Under the influence of denudation processes in different places, depending on the nature of occurrence of various rocks, cuesta ridges (Great Lakes), stepped plateaus (Great Plains region), middle mountains and erosion lowlands (Washito, Ozark) were formed.

The relief and the Cordilleras themselves are very complex. The crustal crest is intersected by numerous faults, starting from the ocean floor and ending on land. The mountain-building process has not yet been completed. This is evidenced by volcanic eruptions (for example, Popocatepetl and Orizaba), as well as strong earthquakes occurring here from time to time.

Minerals

As you know, many different minerals can be found where there are mountains. Cordilleras are no exception. There are huge reserves of non-ferrous and ferrous metals. Of the non-metallic, it is possible to identify oil, which is located in intermontane troughs. Stocks of brown coal are available in the area of the Rocky Mountains (their inner hollows).

Climate

The characteristics of the climate will continue to describe the mountains. Cordilleras are in the way of air ocean masses. Because of this, the influence of the ocean is sharply weakened in the eastern direction. This climatic feature of the Cordillera is reflected in the soil-vegetation cover, the development of modern glaciation, altitude zonality. The stretching from the north to the south of the mountain ranges predetermines the temperature differences in summer and winter. In winter it ranges from -24 ° C (in the Alaska region) to +24 ° C (Mexico, south of the country). In summer the temperature reaches from +4 to +20 ° С.

Precipitation

In the northwest, there is the greatest amount of precipitation. The fact is that this part of the Cordillera is located on the path of the western winds blowing from the Pacific Ocean. The amount of precipitation here is about 3000 mm. The least humidified are the tropical latitudes, since the air ocean masses do not reach them. A small amount of precipitation is also due to the cold current passing near the coast. The internal plateau of the Cordillera is also not strongly moistened. The mountains are located within the temperate, subarctic, tropical and subtropical climatic zones.

Rivers and lakes Cordillera

A significant part of the western rivers of the continent originates in the Cordilleras. Mostly their food is snow and glacial, in summer there is a flood. These rivers are mountainous, swift. The largest of them - Colorado and Columbia. The glacial or volcanic origin has the Cordillera lakes. On the inner plateaus are saline shallow water reservoirs. These are the remains that existed here long ago, during the humid climate, large lakes.

Vegetable world

The plant world of the Cordillera is very diverse. Coniferous forests with a distinctive appearance are located up to 40 ° N. W. They are very rich in species composition. Spruce, cypress, fir, thuja (red cedar) are their typical representatives. The height of conifers reaches 80 meters. Between them there is practically no wood undergrowth. However, a variety of shrubs are growing here in abundance. There are many in the ground cover of mosses and ferns. In the coniferous forests, when moving to the south, sugar pine, white fir, yellow pine begin to come across. Evergreen sequoia appears still to the south. As the dryness increases, south of 42 ° N. Shrubs, thickets of bushes are replaced by forests. They are juniper, heather, and their height does not exceed usually two meters. Here you can sometimes find different types of evergreen oak. The humidity of the climate in the interior of the Cordillera is decreasing. For them, dry forests are characteristic, as well as areas of saltwort and wormwood deserts. The slopes of the mountains receiving sediments are covered up to an altitude of 1200 m by evergreen forests.

Animals that live in the mountains of the Cordillera

Where the Cordillera mountains are located, you can meet the brown bear of the grizzly - a large predator of the continent of North America. Bear baribal, which has a long black fur, lives in the south-west of this system. He destroys cattle and spoils crops. Also there are many lynx, foxes, wolves. In the southern regions of the mountains arthropods, lizards, snakes are often found. In addition, it is home to the poisonous - the only legless poisonous lizard. Large animals in places where people live, or destroyed, or are extremely rare. Bison and hawthorn (a rare antelope) are retained only through national programs in North America. Only in reserves you can observe today a rich animal world.