Ridge-and-Valley Appalachians Information & Ridge-and-Valley Appalachians Links at HealthHaven.com

Ridges and valleys near Bristol, Tennessee

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 southeastern New York through northwestern New Jersey, westward into Pennsylvania and southward into Maryland, West Virginia, Virginia, Tennessee, Georgia 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 almost look like corduroy, except that the widths of the valleys are somewhat variable and ridges sometimes meet in a vee.

[edit] Geography

The two great mountain ranges constituting the middle portion of the Ridge and Valley Province are the Alleghenies and the Cumberlands.^{[citation needed]}

The eastern head 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.

[edit] Geology

Appalachian zones in the US - USGS

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 is 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.

[edit] Significant ridges (from north to south)

Name	State
Shawangunk Ridge	New York
Kittatinny Mountains	New Jersey
Bald Eagle Mountain	Pennsylvania
Blue Mountain	Pennsylvania
Jacks Mountain	Pennsylvania
Nittany Mountain	Pennsylvania
Tuscarora Mountain	Pennsylvania
Tussey Mountain	Pennsylvania
Wills Mountain	Pennsylvania and Maryland
Sideling Hill	West Virginia, Maryland, and Pennsylvania
Cacapon Mountain	West Virginia
Knobly Mountain	West Virginia
Mill Creek Mountain	West Virginia
New Creek Mountain	West Virginia
North Fork Mountain	West Virginia
Patterson Creek Mountain	West Virginia
Sleepy Creek Mountain	West Virginia
South Branch Mountain	West Virginia
Spruce Knob	West Virginia
Allegheny Mountain	Virginia and West Virginia
Great North Mountain	Virginia and West Virginia
North Mountain	Virginia and West Virginia
Massanutten Mountain	Virginia
Pine Mountain	Kentucky, Virginia, and Tennessee
Clinch Mountain	Tennessee and Virginia
Powell Mountain	Tennessee and Virginia
Bays Mountain	Tennessee
Lookout Mountain	Tennessee, Alabama, and Georgia
Red Mountain	Alabama

[edit] Photo gallery

Shaded relief map of Cumberland Plateau and Ridge and Valley Appalachians on the Virginia/West Virginia border.	Pennsylvania's ridge country from Clarks Knob
Oblique air photo of Massanutten Mountain, looking southwest. The south fork of the Shenandoah River is visible to the left, as well as a part of the Blue Ridge Mountains.	Oblique air photo facing north of central Bedford County, Pennsylvania, in December 2006, showing Wills, Evitts, and Tussey Mountains from center to right.

[edit] See also

[edit] References

Stanley, Steven M. Earth System History. New York: W.H. Freeman and Company, 1999. ISBN 0-7167-2882-6