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A mountain range or hill range is a series of mountains or hills arranged in a line and connected by high ground. A mountain system or mountain belt is a group of mountain ranges with similarity in form, structure, and alignment that have arisen from the same cause, usually an orogeny . [ 1 ]
Uluru (Ayers Rock) is a large sandstone formation in Northern Territory, Australia.. Sedimentary rocks can be subdivided into four groups based on the processes responsible for their formation: clastic sedimentary rocks, biochemical (biogenic) sedimentary rocks, chemical sedimentary rocks, and a fourth category for "other" sedimentary rocks formed by impacts, volcanism, and other minor processes.
The rocky cores of the mountain ranges are, in most places, formed of pieces of continental crust that are over one billion years old. In the south, an older mountain range was formed 300 million years ago, then eroded away. The rocks of that older range were reformed into the Rocky Mountains.
The mountains formed during the Grenvillian era underwent erosion from weathering, glaciation, and other natural processes, resulting in the leveling of the landscape. The eroded sediments from these mountains contributed to the formation of sedimentary basins and valleys.
Uplift intensified and climaxed a few million years later early in the Eocene epoch when large thrust and reverse faults created small mountain ranges separated by subsiding sedimentary basins. One of the reverse faults, the north–south trending 10 miles (16 km) long Buck Mountain Fault, elevated what is today the central part of the Teton Range.
The high mountain ranges produced by continental collisions are immediately subjected to the forces of erosion. [8] Erosion wears down the mountains and massive piles of sediment are developed in adjacent ocean margins, shallow seas, and as continental deposits. As these sediment piles are buried deeper they become lithified into sedimentary rock.
The geology of Montana includes thick sequences of Paleozoic, Mesozoic and Cenozoic sedimentary rocks overlying ancient Archean and Proterozoic crystalline basement rock. . Eastern Montana has considerable oil and gas resources, while the uplifted Rocky Mountains in the west, which resulted from the Laramide orogeny and other tectonic events have locations with met
For example, the flat-topped mountains which are known as mesas in the Cockburn Range of North Western Australia have areas as large as 350 km 2 (140 sq mi). In contrast, flat topped hills with areas as small as 0.1 km 2 (0.039 sq mi) in the Elbe Sandstone Mountains, Germany, are described as mesas. [1] [2] [3]