NORTH AMERICAN

REGIONS
II. Appalachian System
Ridge and Valley
 Pl
at
ea
u
Rid
ge
Pie an
dm dV
on al l
t ey
 Key
 Red-Term to define and remember
 Yellow-Place to locate and remember
 Green-Resource to know and
remember
 Bright Green-Agricultural product
(crop) to remember
 White, Blue and Brown-Narration to
help understanding
Great Smoky Mountains
National Park
Most Rugged Part of the
Appalachian Mountains
 To really see the most visited
National Park you have to get
out of your car and on the . . .
From Clingman’s Dome
the highest point in the park

Note: the dead and dying trees.

Caused by:
An infestation of a species of naturally re-
occurring caterpillar
Where the clouds meet the land
Appalachian Trail
through mountain mahogany
Why don’t you want to be on a mountain as a
storm approaches?

Thunderhead Mountain
As we hurried off Thunderhead
Mountain we found a . . .

Shelter

Yes, we cleaned it up!

 By the following morning
The rain had turned to . . .
Sledding, anyone?
 Spring

Mountain Laurel
Azalea
Flame Azalea
 Animals I
Have Known

newt
The Smoky Mountains are the home to the
largest specimen of many species of trees
due to . . .

Animals I have
seen

• remote location reducing logging

• heavy (orographic) rainfall
Who has walked part of the
Appalachian Trail?
Cade’s Cove
 Why would the people have
been willing to sell then?

Great Smoky Mountains National Park

was inhabited when the government
bought the land in the 1930’s.
Cades Cove Cabin
Cades Cove Cabin in Winter
Great Smoky Mountains
National Park

I Like Signs
In a National
Park you can
enjoy nature
and
tranquility.
 Or . . .
You can go outside the
park to . . .

Gatlinburg, Tennessee
You Decide
Ridge Gap

Kingsport, Tennessee

How were the ridges formed?

 The Appalachian Mountains
are mostly folded mountains.

Most of the rock is sedimentary.

Pennsyl-
vania

From
NASA
 Kingsport, Tennessee

Let’s stand at the top of the ridge

looking down on the town in the gap.
 Holston River

A tributary of the Tennessee

Chattanooga, Tennessee

Tenne
ssee R
iver

Meander

From Lookout Mountain

Gap Ridge
Gap

t i on
or t a
ans p
n t r ap.
e r g
Mod ses the
u
Would you rather travel up and down these
ridges,
or
along the floor of the gap?
 Pennsylvania & New York
ridges and valleys and gap
 Delaware (River) Water Gap
on the border of
Pennsylvania and New Jersey
Pennsyl-
vania

From
NASA
Cumberland Mountains, Virginia
 Which way is travel easier?

Cumberland Mountains, Virginia

Cumberland Gap
Cumberland Gap--today
And here

At the gaps
Notice how the roads and railroads focus here
Like this!
 Cumberland Gap
on the border of Virginia,
Kentucky, & Tennessee
Along the Blue Ridge Parkway
• The Blue Ridge Parkway was built by the US
government during the 1930’s to give unemployed
construction workers a job.
• Unlike most mountain roads it travels along the tops of
the ridges.
• It extends for over 400 miles from Great Smoky
Mountains to Shenandoah National Parks.
• It is two lanes and the speed limit is 45mph.

How does this elevation compare with

St. Louis?
With Denver?
 Mt. Mitchell?
6684’
The highest point in the
Appalachians.

The highest point on the road.

How do these mountains look
different from the Rockies?
Roanoke Mountain

What would you do here?

 Definitions
 Orographic-caused by mountains
 Ridge-a long narrow hill or mountain
 Gap-a pass through a ridge caused by a
river
 Folded mountains-mountains raised by
compression of a plate
 Sedimentary-a type of rock that was
formed from layers of deposited material,
usually under water (i.e.: sandstone,
shale, limestone, conglomerate)
 Tributary-a smaller stream that flows into
a larger river
 e
g
i d
M
t.
M

R
itc
Cumberland Gap he
ll

e
Te

l u
Great Smoky
n

Mtns. Nat. Park

ne

B
s se
e

Chattanooga
R.
 Coal
A sedimentary rock

What is this black rock?

A coal mine
Coal Mine
Coal Mine
Mountain Top Mining

West Virginia-2003
Photo by Vivian Stockman http://www.ohvec.org/galleries/mountaintop_removal/007/
Chemical Industry

Coal
Raw Material
West Virginia

Nestled in a Valley
 For six straight censuses from 1940 to 1990 West
Virginia lost population.
This is due to the declining coal mining industry.

Floods

What natural disaster should these people worry about?

 West Virginia is one of the poorer states.
Someone once said it’s symbol should be an
old tire around a mailbox or a rag stuffed
into a car’s gas filler pipe.*

*William Least Heat-Moon

 West Virginia

But, some is pretty!

Mountain Highways: Country Roads
 Three way gap

Maryland
Virginia

West Virginia
 Harpers Ferry

Ri ve r
an do ah
S he n

Potomac River

What’s the name of the town?

 Gap
?

Central Pennsylvania
Through the gap
Northern Pennsylvania
 Lake Champlain

On the border of New York and Vermont

 Lake George

Site of Fort Ticonderoga

Important during the French
and Indian War and the
Revolutionary War
 Vermont
Translation from the French = Green Mountains
Central Vermont
Quechee Gorge,
Vermont
Central Vermont
Northern New Hampshire
U.S. (New Hampshire)-Canada (Quebec)
border
 Cadillac Mountain

What kind of rock is this?

Answer: Granite (Igneous)

Acadia National Park, Maine

Note: the differences between these
islands and the barrier islands found
in the Atlantic Coastal Plain.

Acadia National Park

Note: the topography

Bar Harbor, Maine

Bar Harbor, Close Up

Cottages!
 Mt. Desert Island, Maine

Fog
Acadia National Park

Fog rolling in
Typical Shoreline
Tidal Pool
Rockefeller’s Cottage
 New Brunswick
a Canadian Maritime Province

How would
people have
used this
waterfall 200
years ago?

Power=a mill

The brownish tinge in the water is from

dissolved tannins from leaves, not
pollution
 Gaspe Peninsula
What religion are these Quebecois?
 e Gulf of St. Lawrence
p l a
as s u PRINCE Cape
G in Breton
n EDWARD
Pe
ISLAND Island
NEW
BRUNSWICK

IA
OT
dy
un

SC
fF
MAINE

VA
yo
NO
Ba
Ba
rH
LakeVERMONT ar
Champlain b or
, Ac
ad
ia
NP
 Macropedia River
Gaspe Peninsula, Quebec
This is how you can travel
cheaply!
Kouchbouguac National Park
New Brunswick

Beaches are extremely unusual: therefore, the

National Park was set apart.
Why does this area look as it does?

Lodge
Da
m
 Flooding adjacent land

Humans are not the only animals to

change their environment.
 Flowers

Ladyslipper
orchid
Note: the building material is wood.

Saint John , New Brunswick

Trees = lumber
 Reversing Falls

Wonder why it’s called that?

Keep thinking!
 Paper Mill

Water Power

Why is this mill located here?

What kind of mill is it?
Bay of Fundy
 Bay of Fundy Shoreline

At low tide

Mud flats
Bay of Fundy

Fish Traps
Reversing Falls

Why is it called that?

Hopewell Rocks, N.B.
Hopewell Rocks, N.B.
One hour later
Hopewell
Rocks
New
Brunswick
6 hours
later at
High tide
Note: the brownish water from
silt suspended by tidal flow
Have you ever walked on the sea floor?
Sedimentary Rock
Conglomerate

What are these?

barnacles
Hopewell Rocks, New Brunswick
One of the world’s weird places.
Prince Edward Island

Gulf of Saint Lawrence

 Salt Box House
• Roof longer in
back
• Square
• 2-story
• Cedar shingle
siding
• Gabled roof

Not usually this color!

Often with one of these parked next to it.
Cheticamp, Nova Scotia

The Maritimes are one of the few

places where fishing is still an
important (primary) industry!
And what are we fishing for?
Lobster

Hint
 Nova Scotia

Average July Temperature = 64 F

Average January temperature = 23 F
Total Precipitation = 55 inches
 Therefore it’s green.
Note: rounded ridges and valley

Do you see evidence of a

common export of Nova
Scotia?

Especially during the late fall

Christmas Trees
Nova Scotia

What resource is
this white rock?
Gypsum
Cape Breton Highlands
National Park
 Cape Breton Highlands
National Park

This scenic drive around

the coast is named after
the first European explorer
in the area. Who was he?
 Cape Breton Highlands
National Park

John Cabot
(The Cabot Trail)

Where the mountains meet the sea

 The Barrens

A 1500 foot plateau on which

the climate is cool enough so
that a stunted boreal forest
grows here.
A rapidly eroding cliff
 Let’s hit the beach!
Date = June 28; Temp.= 44 F
 How do you
catch a lobster?

Sometimes traps
with captured
prey wash up
during storms.
The seashore is the front line in
the war between the land and
the sea.
 The battle continues:
A peninsula becoming an island
In most places the sea is winning!
A lodge
What type of rock is it?
Igneous
 Definitions
 Igneous – Rock which is the result of
cooling magma: i.e. granite, basalt,
rhyolite, etc.
 Maritime Province – Three small Canadian
provinces on the Atlantic Ocean: New
Brunswick, Prince Edward Island & Nova
Scotia
 Salt Box House – a 19th century, square,
two-story house with cedar shingle siding
and gables built in New England and the
Maritimes
 Mill – a building using machinery to turn
raw materials into products: a factory
Review
From the air
Washington, D. C.
Ridge and Valley

e r
R iv
ah
n do
na
e
Sh

Meanders
 Ridges
with snow
Ridge and Valley
Folded Mountains
 Charleston, West Virginia

Why is it so elongated?

Located in a river valley.

Nitro, W. V. ve r
a Ri
w h
n a
Ka

Institute, W. V.
NORTH AMERICAN
REGIONS
II. Appalachian System
Ridge and Valley

The End