Rocky Mountains

• Rocky Mountains

59:2.4A few mil­lion years later large por­tions of the Amer­i­can con­ti­nents and Eu­rope be­gan to emerge from the wa­ter. In the West­ern Hemi­sphere only an arm of the Pa­cific Ocean re­mained over Mex­ico and the pres­ent Rocky Moun­tain re­gions, but near the close of this epoch the At­lantic and Pa­cific coasts again be­gan to sink.

• Rocky Mountains

59:5.18Through­out this epoch the moun­tains of North and South Amer­ica were ac­tive, both the An­des and the south­ern an­ces­tral Rocky Moun­tains ris­ing. The great At­lantic and Pa­cific high coastal re­gions be­gan to sink, even­tu­ally be­com­ing so eroded and sub­merged that the coast lines of both oceans with­drew to ap­prox­i­mately their pres­ent po­si­tions. The de­posits of this in­un­da­tion av­er­age about one thou­sand feet in thick­ness.

59:5.19190,000,000 years ago wit­nessed a west­ward ex­ten­sion of the North Amer­i­can Car­bonif­er­ous sea over the pres­ent Rocky Moun­tain re­gion, with an out­let to the Pa­cific Ocean through north­ern Cal­i­for­nia. Coal con­tin­ued to be laid down through­out the Amer­i­cas and Eu­rope, layer upon layer, as the coast­lands rose and fell dur­ing these ages of seashore os­cil­la­tions.

• Rocky Mountains

60:3.9The de­posits of chalk and green­sand marl give name to this pe­riod. The sed­i­men­ta­tions of these times are var­ie­gated, con­sist­ing of chalk, shale, sand­stone, and small amounts of lime­stone, to­gether with in­fe­rior coal or lig­nite, and in many re­gions they con­tain oil. These lay­ers vary in thick­ness from 200 feet in some places to 10,000 feet in west­ern North Amer­ica and nu­mer­ous Eu­ro­pean lo­cal­i­ties. Along the east­ern bor­ders of the Rocky Moun­tains these de­posits may be ob­served in the up­tilted foothills.

60:3.10All over the world these strata are per­me­ated with chalk, and these lay­ers of porous semirock pick up wa­ter at up­turned out­crops and con­vey it down­ward to fur­nish the wa­ter sup­ply of much of the earth’s pres­ent arid re­gions.

60:3.1180,000,000 years ago great dis­tur­bances oc­curred in the earth’s crust. The west­ern ad­vance of the con­ti­nen­tal drift was com­ing to a stand­still, and the enor­mous en­ergy of the slug­gish mo­men­tum of the hin­ter con­ti­nen­tal mass up­crum­pled the Pa­cific shore line of both North and South Amer­ica and ini­ti­ated pro­found reper­cus­sional changes along the Pa­cific shores of Asia. This cir­cum­pa­cific land el­e­va­tion, which cul­mi­nated in pres­ent-day moun­tain ranges, is more than twenty-five thou­sand miles long. And the up­heavals at­ten­dant upon its birth were the great­est sur­face dis­tor­tions to take place since life ap­peared on Uran­tia. The lava flows, both above and be­low ground, were ex­ten­sive and wide­spread.

60:3.1275,000,000 years ago marks the end of the con­ti­nen­tal drift. From Alaska to Cape Horn the long Pa­cific coast moun­tain ranges were com­pleted, but there were as yet few peaks.

60:3.13The back­thrust of the halted con­ti­nen­tal drift con­tin­ued the el­e­va­tion of the west­ern plains of North Amer­ica, while in the east the worn-down Ap­palachian Moun­tains of the At­lantic coast re­gion were pro­jected straight up, with lit­tle or no tilt­ing.

60:3.1470,000,000 years ago the crustal dis­tor­tions con­nected with the max­i­mum el­e­va­tion of the Rocky Moun­tain re­gion took place. A large seg­ment of rock was over­thrust fif­teen miles at the sur­face in British Columbia; here the Cam­brian rocks are obliquely thrust out over the Cre­ta­ceous lay­ers. On the east­ern slope of the Rocky Moun­tains, near the Cana­dian bor­der, there was an­other spec­tac­u­lar over­thrust; here may be found the pre­life stone lay­ers shoved out over the then re­cent Cre­ta­ceous de­posits.

• Rocky Mountains

60:4.2This pe­riod also wit­nesses the end of the con­ti­nen­tal drift and the build­ing of the mod­ern moun­tains of Uran­tia. But the pres­sure of the con­ti­nen­tal masses and the thwarted mo­men­tum of their age­long drift are not the ex­clu­sive in­flu­ences in moun­tain build­ing. The chief and un­der­ly­ing fac­tor in de­ter­min­ing the lo­ca­tion of a moun­tain range is the pre-ex­is­tent low­land, or trough, which has be­come filled up with the com­par­a­tively lighter de­posits of the land ero­sion and ma­rine drifts of the pre­ced­ing ages. These lighter ar­eas of land are some­times 15,000 to 20,000 feet thick; there­fore, when the crust is sub­jected to pres­sure from any cause, these lighter ar­eas are the first to crum­ple up, fold, and rise up­ward to af­ford com­pen­satory ad­just­ment for the con­tend­ing and con­flict­ing forces and pres­sures at work in the earth’s crust or un­der­neath the crust. Some­times these up­thrusts of land oc­cur with­out fold­ing. But in con­nec­tion with the rise of the Rocky Moun­tains, great fold­ing and tilt­ing oc­curred, cou­pled with enor­mous over­thrusts of the var­i­ous lay­ers, both un­der­ground and at the sur­face.

60:4.3The old­est moun­tains of the world are lo­cated in Asia, Green­land, and north­ern Eu­rope among those of the older east-west sys­tems. The mid-age moun­tains are in the cir­cum­pa­cific group and in the sec­ond Eu­ro­pean east-west sys­tem, which was born at about the same time. This gi­gan­tic up­ris­ing is al­most ten thou­sand miles long, ex­tend­ing from Eu­rope over into the West In­dies land el­e­va­tions. The young­est moun­tains are in the Rocky Moun­tain sys­tem, where, for ages, land el­e­va­tions had oc­curred only to be suc­ces­sively cov­ered by the sea, though some of the higher lands re­mained as is­lands. Sub­se­quent to the for­ma­tion of the mid-age moun­tains, a real moun­tain high­land was el­e­vated which was des­tined, sub­se­quently, to be carved into the pres­ent Rocky Moun­tains by the com­bined artistry of na­ture’s el­e­ments.

60:4.4The pres­ent North Amer­i­can Rocky Moun­tain re­gion is not the orig­i­nal el­e­va­tion of land; that el­e­va­tion had been long since lev­eled by ero­sion and then re-el­e­vated. The pres­ent front range of moun­tains is what is left of the re­mains of the orig­i­nal range which was re-el­e­vated. Pikes Peak and Longs Peak are out­stand­ing ex­am­ples of this moun­tain ac­tiv­ity, ex­tend­ing over two or more gen­er­a­tions of moun­tain lives. These two peaks held their heads above wa­ter dur­ing sev­eral of the pre­ced­ing in­un­da­tions.

• Rocky Mountains

61:3.325,000,000 years ago there was a slight land sub­mer­gence fol­low­ing the long epoch of land el­e­va­tion. The Rocky Moun­tain re­gion re­mained highly el­e­vated so that the de­po­si­tion of ero­sion ma­te­rial con­tin­ued through­out the low­lands to the east. The Sier­ras were well re-el­e­vated; in fact, they have been ris­ing ever since. The great four-mile ver­ti­cal fault in the Cal­i­for­nia re­gion dates from this time.

60:2.2The largest of the di­no­saurs orig­i­nated in west­ern North Amer­ica. These mon­strous rep­tiles are buried through­out the Rocky Moun­tain re­gions, along the whole of the At­lantic coast of North Amer­ica, over west­ern Eu­rope, South Africa, and In­dia, but not in Aus­tralia.