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Section 4 of 6 · 4 entries
The ranges
A grain running the wrong way across a continent.
Almost every range in North America runs north–south. The Ouachitas run east–west, folded that way by a continental collision, and that single fact explains the valley, the basin beneath it and the rank of its coal. The flat-topped mountains standing out of the lowland are what a hard sandstone lid saved.
Everything in the ranges
An east–west grain
Almost every range in North America runs north–south. The Ouachitas run east–west, folded that way by a continental collision, and that single fact explains the valley, the basin and the coal.
Mount Magazine, and the cap that saved it
A hard sandstone cap protected what was beneath it while everything around wore away, which is why an isolated flat-topped mountain stands above farmland.
Sugar Loaf, Poteau, and the flat tops
The same cap-and-slope structure repeated at smaller scale across the valley, each one a remnant of a surface that used to be continuous.
The collision that folded it
The mountains, the basin and the rank of the coal are all products of one continental collision, which is why they cannot be explained separately.