1.
Summit
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A summit is a point on a surface that is higher in elevation than all points immediately adjacent to it. Mathematically, a summit is a maximum in elevation. The topographic terms acme, apex, peak, and zenith are synonymous, the UIAA definition is that a summit is independent if it has a prominence of 30 metres or more, it is a mountain if it has a prominence of at least 300 metres. This can be summarised as follows, A pyramidal peak is an exaggerated form produced by ice erosion of a mountain top, Summit may also refer to the highest point along a line, trail, or route. In many parts of the western United States, the term refers to the highest point along a road, highway. For example, the highest point along Interstate 80 in California is referred to as Donner Summit while the highest point on Interstate 5 is Siskiyou Mountain Summit, geoid Hill List of highest mountains Maxima and minima Nadir Summit accordance Peak finder
2.
Sevier County, Tennessee
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Sevier County is a county of the U. S. state of Tennessee. As of the 2010 census, the population was 89,889 and its county seat and largest city is Sevierville. Sevier County comprises the Sevierville, TN Micropolitan Statistical Area, which is included in the Knoxville-Morristown-Sevierville, TN Combined Statistical Area. Prior to the arrival of settlers in present-day Sevier County in the mid-18th century. Sevier County was formed on September 18,1794 from part of neighboring Jefferson County, and has retained its original boundaries ever since. The county takes its name from John Sevier, governor of the failed State of Franklin and first governor of Tennessee, since its establishment in 1795, the county seat has been situated at Sevierville, the eighth-oldest city in Tennessee. Sevier County was strongly pro-Union during the Civil War, when Tennessee held a vote on the states Ordinance of Secession on June 8,1861, Sevier Countians voted 1,528 to 60 in favor of remaining in the Union. Pickens, Sheriff of Sevier County, led an attempt to destroy the railroad bridge at Strawberry Plains as part of the East Tennessee bridge-burning conspiracy. Prior to the late 1930s, Sevier Countys population, economy, however, with the creation of the Great Smoky Mountains National Park in the early 1930s, the future of Sevier County changed drastically. Today, tourism supports the countys economy, according to the U. S. Census Bureau, the county has a total area of 598 square miles, of which 593 square miles is land and 5.2 square miles is water. The southern part of Sevier County is located within the Great Smoky Mountains, the northern parts of the county are located within the Ridge-and-Valley Appalachians. Sevier contains the highest point in Tennessee, Clingmans Dome, which rises to 6,643 feet along the border with North Carolina. Mount Guyot, located in the Eastern Smokies in the eastern part of the county, is the states second-highest mountain at 6,621 feet. The 6, 593-foot Mount Le Conte, a prominent mountain visible from much of the central part of the county, is the states third-highest. Sevier County is drained primarily by the French Broad River, which passes through the part of the county. A portion of the French Broad is part of Douglas Lake, the three forks of the Little Pigeon River flow northward from the Smokies, converge near Sevierville, and empty into the French Broad north of Sevierville. The West Fork is the best known, as it flows through the popular tourist areas of Gatlinburg, the population density was 120 people per square mile. There were 37,252 housing units at a density of 63 per square mile
3.
Mountain range
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A mountain range is a geographic area containing numerous geologically related mountains. A mountain system or system of ranges, sometimes is used to combine several geological features that are geographically related. Mountain ranges are usually segmented by highlands or mountain passes and valleys, individual mountains within the same mountain range do not necessarily have the same geologic structure or petrology. They may be a mix of different orogenic expressions and terranes, for example thrust sheets, uplifted blocks, fold mountains, most geologically young mountain ranges on the Earths land surface are associated with either the Pacific Ring of Fire or the Alpide Belt. The Andes is 7,000 kilometres long and is considered the worlds longest mountain system. The Alpide belt includes Indonesia and southeast Asia, through the Himalaya, the belt also includes other European and Asian mountain ranges. The Himalayas contain the highest mountains in the world, including Mount Everest, mountain ranges outside of these two systems include the Arctic Cordillera, the Urals, the Appalachians, the Scandinavian Mountains, the Altai Mountains and the Hijaz Mountains. If the definition of a range is stretched to include underwater mountains. The mountain systems of the earth are characterized by a tree structure, the sub-range relationship is often expressed as a parent-child relationship. For example, the White Mountains of New Hampshire and the Blue Ridge Mountains are sub-ranges of the Appalachian Mountains, equivalently, the Appalachians are the parent of the White Mountains and Blue Ridge Mountains, and the White Mountains and the Blue Ridge Mountains are children of the Appalachians. The position of mountains influences climate, such as rain or snow, when air masses move up and over mountains, the air cools producing orographic precipitation. As the air descends on the side, it warms again and is drier. Often, a shadow will affect the leeward side of a range. Mountain ranges are constantly subjected to forces which work to tear them down. Erosion is at work while the mountains are being uplifted and long after until the mountains are reduced to low hills, rivers are traditionally believed to be the principle erosive factor on mountain ranges, with their ability of bedrock incision and sediment transport. The rugged topography of a range is the product of erosion. The basins adjacent to a mountain range are filled with sediments which are buried and turned into sedimentary rock. The early Cenozoic uplift of the Rocky Mountains of Colorado provides an example and this mass of rock was removed as the range was actively undergoing uplift
4.
Appalachian Mountains
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The Appalachian Mountains, often called the Appalachians, are a system of mountains in eastern North America. The Appalachians first formed roughly 480 million years ago during the Ordovician Period and it once reached elevations similar to those of the Alps and the Rocky Mountains before naturally occurring erosion. The Appalachian chain is a barrier to east-west travel, as it forms a series of alternating ridgelines, definitions vary on the precise boundaries of the Appalachians. A common variant definition does not include the Adirondack Mountains, which belong to the Grenville Orogeny and have a different geological history from the rest of the Appalachians. The range covers parts of the islands of Saint Pierre and Miquelon, the system is divided into a series of ranges, with the individual mountains averaging around 3,000 ft. The highest of the group is Mount Mitchell in North Carolina at 6,684 feet, the term Appalachian refers to several different regions associated with the mountain range. Most broadly, it refers to the mountain range with its surrounding hills. The Ouachita Mountains in Arkansas and Oklahoma were originally part of the Appalachians as well, the name was soon altered by the Spanish to Apalachee and used as a name for the tribe and region spreading well inland to the north. Pánfilo de Narváezs expedition first entered Apalachee territory on June 15,1528, now spelled Appalachian, it is the fourth-oldest surviving European place-name in the US. After the de Soto expedition in 1540, Spanish cartographers began to apply the name of the tribe to the mountains themselves. The first cartographic appearance of Apalchen is on Diego Gutierrezs map of 1562, the name was not commonly used for the whole mountain range until the late 19th century. A competing and often more popular name was the Allegheny Mountains, Alleghenies, in the early 19th century, Washington Irving proposed renaming the United States either Appalachia or Alleghania. In U. S. dialects in the regions of the Appalachians. In northern parts of the range, it is pronounced /ˌæpəˈleɪtʃᵻnz/ or /ˌæpəˈleɪʃᵻnz/, the third syllable is like lay. There is often debate between the residents of the regions as to which pronunciation is the more correct one. Elsewhere, a commonly accepted pronunciation for the adjective Appalachian is /ˌæpəˈlætʃiən/, the whole system may be divided into three great sections, Northern, The northern section runs from the Canadian province of Newfoundland and Labrador to the Hudson River. The Monteregian Hills, which cross the Green Mountains in Quebec, are also unassociated with the Appalachians, Central, The central section goes from the Hudson Valley to the New River running through Virginia and West Virginia. Southern, The southern section runs from the New River onwards and it consists of the prolongation of the Blue Ridge, which is divided into the Western Blue Ridge Front and the Eastern Blue Ridge Front, the Ridge-and-Valley Appalachians, and the Cumberland Plateau
5.
Blue Ridge Mountains
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The Blue Ridge Mountains are a physiographic province of the larger Appalachian Mountains range. This province consists of northern and southern regions, which divide near the Roanoke River gap. The mountain range is located in the eastern United States, starting at its southernmost portion in Georgia, then ending northward in Pennsylvania. To the west of the Blue Ridge, between it and the bulk of the Appalachians, lies the Great Appalachian Valley, bordered on the west by the Ridge, the Blue Ridge Mountains are noted for having a bluish color when seen from a distance. Trees put the blue in Blue Ridge, from the isoprene released into the atmosphere, thereby contributing to the haze on the mountains. Within the Blue Ridge province are two national parks, the Shenandoah National Park, in the northern section, and the Great Smoky Mountains National Park. The Blue Ridge also contains the Blue Ridge Parkway, a 469-mile long scenic highway that connects the two parks and is located along the ridge crestlines with the Appalachian Trail, the Blue Ridge extends as far north into Pennsylvania as South Mountain. The Blue Ridge contains the highest mountains in eastern North America south of Baffin Island, about 125 peaks exceed 5,000 feet in elevation. The highest peak in the Blue Ridge is Mt. Mitchell in North Carolina at 6,684 feet. There are 39 peaks in North Carolina and Tennessee higher than 6,000 feet, by comparison, Southern Sixers is a term used by peak baggers for this group of mountains. The Blue Ridge Parkway runs 469 miles along crests of the Southern Appalachians, in many places along the parkway, there are metamorphic rocks with folded bands of light-and dark-colored minerals, which sometimes look like the folds and swirls in a marble cake. Most of the rocks that form the Blue Ridge Mountains are ancient granitic charnockites, metamorphosed volcanic formations, modern studies have found that the basement geology of the Blue Ridge is made of compositionally unique gneisses and granitoids, including orthopyroxene-bearing charnockites. Analysis of zircon minerals in the completed by John Aleinikoff at the U. S. Geological Survey has provided more detailed emplacement ages. Many of the found in the Blue Ridge and documented by Tollo. The lack of an affinity and zircon ages less than 1,200 Ma suggest that the Blue Ridge is distinct from the Adirondacks, Green Mountains. The petrologic and geochronologic data suggest that the Blue Ridge basement is a composite orogenic crust that was emplaced during several episodes from a magma source. Field relationships further illustrate that rocks emplaced prior to 1, 078-1,064 Ma preserve deformational features and those emplaced post-1,064 Ma generally have a massive texture and missed the main episode of Mesoproterozoic compression. The Blue Ridge Mountains began forming during the Silurian Period over 400 million years ago, approximately 320 Mya, North America and Europe collided, pushing up the Blue Ridge
6.
Great Smoky Mountains
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The Great Smoky Mountains are a mountain range rising along the Tennessee–North Carolina border in the southeastern United States. They are a subrange of the Appalachian Mountains, and form part of the Blue Ridge Physiographic Province, the range is sometimes called the Smoky Mountains and the name is commonly shortened to the Smokies. The Great Smokies are best known as the home of the Great Smoky Mountains National Park, the park was established in 1934, and, with over 9 million visits per year, it is the most-visited national park in the United States. The Great Smokies are part of an International Biosphere Reserve, the range is home to an estimated 187,000 acres of old growth forest, constituting the largest such stand east of the Mississippi River. The Great Smokies are also home to the densest black bear population in the Eastern United States, along with the Biosphere reserve, the Great Smokies have been designated a UNESCO World Heritage Site. The park contains five districts and nine individual listings on the National Register of Historic Places. The name Smoky comes from the fog that often hangs over the range. This fog is caused by the vegetation exhaling volatile organic compounds, chemicals that have a vapor pressure. As a result of the 2016 Great Smoky Mountains wildfires, the Great Smoky Mountains have received media coverage. The Great Smoky Mountains stretch from the Pigeon River in the northeast to the Little Tennessee River to the southwest, the northwestern half of the range gives way to a series of elongate ridges known as the Foothills, the outermost of which include Chilhowee Mountain and English Mountain. The range is bounded on the south by the Tuckasegee River and to the southeast by Soco Creek. The Great Smokies comprise parts of Blount County, Sevier County, the sources of several rivers are located in the Smokies, including the Little Pigeon River, the Oconaluftee River, and Little River. Streams in the Smokies are part of the Tennessee River watershed and are thus entirely west of the Eastern Continental Divide. The largest stream wholly within the park is Abrams Creek, which rises in Cades Cove, other major streams include Hazel Creek and Eagle Creek in the southwest, Raven Fork near Oconaluftee, Cosby Creek near Cosby, and Roaring Fork near Gatlinburg. The Little Tennessee River passes through five impoundments along the southwestern boundary, namely Tellico Lake, Chilhowee Lake, Calderwood Lake, Cheoah Lake. The highest point in the Smokies is Clingmans Dome, which rises to an elevation of 6,643 feet, the mountain is the highest in Tennessee and the third highest in the Appalachian range. Clingmans Dome also has the ranges highest topographical prominence at 4,503 feet, Mount Le Conte is the tallest mountain in the range, rising 5,301 feet from its base in Gatlinburg to its 6, 593-foot summit. The Smokies rise prominently above the low terrain
7.
United States Geological Survey
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The United States Geological Survey is a scientific agency of the United States government. The scientists of the USGS study the landscape of the United States, its resources. The organization has four science disciplines, concerning biology, geography, geology. The USGS is a research organization with no regulatory responsibility. The USGS is a bureau of the United States Department of the Interior, the USGS employs approximately 8,670 people and is headquartered in Reston, Virginia. The USGS also has major offices near Lakewood, Colorado, at the Denver Federal Center, the current motto of the USGS, in use since August 1997, is science for a changing world. The agencys previous slogan, adopted on the occasion of its anniversary, was Earth Science in the Public Service. Prompted by a report from the National Academy of Sciences, the USGS was created, by a last-minute amendment and it was charged with the classification of the public lands, and examination of the geological structure, mineral resources, and products of the national domain. This task was driven by the need to inventory the vast lands added to the United States by the Louisiana Purchase in 1803, the legislation also provided that the Hayden, Powell, and Wheeler surveys be discontinued as of June 30,1879. Clarence King, the first director of USGS, assembled the new organization from disparate regional survey agencies, after a short tenure, King was succeeded in the directors chair by John Wesley Powell. Administratively, it is divided into a Headquarters unit and six Regional Units, Other specific programs include, Earthquake Hazards Program monitors earthquake activity worldwide. The National Earthquake Information Center in Golden, Colorado on the campus of the Colorado School of Mines detects the location, the USGS also runs or supports several regional monitoring networks in the United States under the umbrella of the Advanced National Seismic System. The USGS informs authorities, emergency responders, the media, and it also maintains long-term archives of earthquake data for scientific and engineering research. It also conducts and supports research on long-term seismic hazards, USGS has released the UCERF California earthquake forecast. The USGS National Geomagnetism Program monitors the magnetic field at magnetic observatories and distributes magnetometer data in real time, the USGS operates the streamgaging network for the United States, with over 7400 streamgages. Real-time streamflow data are available online, since 1962, the Astrogeology Research Program has been involved in global, lunar, and planetary exploration and mapping. USGS operates a number of related programs, notably the National Streamflow Information Program. USGS Water data is available from their National Water Information System database
8.
Hiking
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Hiking is the preferred term, in Canada and the United States, for a long, vigorous walk, usually on trails, in the countryside, while the word walking is used for shorter, particularly urban walks. On the other hand, in the United Kingdom, and the Republic of Ireland, the word hiking is also often used in the UK, along with rambling, hillwalking, and fell walking. The term bushwalking is endemic to Australia, having been adopted by the Sydney Bush Walkers club in 1927, in New Zealand a long, vigorous walk or hike is called tramping. It is an activity with numerous hiking organizations worldwide. In the United States, Canada, the Republic of Ireland, a day hike refers to a hike that can be completed in a single day. However, in the United Kingdom, the walking is also used, as well as rambling. In Northern England, Including the Lake District and Yorkshire Dales, fellwalking describes hill or mountain walks, hiking sometimes involves bushwhacking and is sometimes referred to as such. This specifically refers to walking through dense forest, undergrowth, or bushes. In extreme cases of bushwhacking, where the vegetation is so dense that human passage is impeded, the Australian term bushwalking refers to both on and off-trail hiking. Common terms for hiking used by New Zealanders are tramping, walking or bushwalking, trekking is the preferred word used to describe multi-day hiking in the mountainous regions of India, Pakistan, Nepal, North America, South America, Iran and in the highlands of East Africa. Hiking a long-distance trail from end-to-end is also referred to as trekking, in North America, multi-day hikes, usually with camping, are referred to as backpacking. The idea of taking a walk in the countryside for pleasure developed in the 18th-century, in earlier times walking generally indicated poverty and was also associated with vagrancy. Thomas West, an English priest, popularized the idea of walking for pleasure in his guide to the Lake District of 1778. To this end he included various stations or viewpoints around the lakes, published in 1778 the book was a major success. Another famous early exponent of walking for pleasure, was the English poet William Wordsworth, in 1790 he embarked on an extended tour of France, Switzerland, and Germany, a journey subsequently recorded in his long autobiographical poem The Prelude. His famous poem Tintern Abbey was inspired by a visit to the Wye Valley made during a tour of Wales in 1798 with his sister Dorothy Wordsworth. Wordsworths friend Coleridge was another keen walker and in the autumn of 1799, he and Wordsworth undertook a three weeks tour of the Lake District. John Keats, who belonged to the generation of Romantic poets began, in June 1818, a walking tour of Scotland, Ireland
9.
Mountain
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A mountain is a large landform that stretches above the surrounding land in a limited area, usually in the form of a peak. A mountain is steeper than a hill. Mountains are formed through tectonic forces or volcanism and these forces can locally raise the surface of the earth. Mountains erode slowly through the action of rivers, weather conditions, a few mountains are isolated summits, but most occur in huge mountain ranges. High elevations on mountains produce colder climates than at sea level and these colder climates strongly affect the ecosystems of mountains, different elevations have different plants and animals. Because of the less hospitable terrain and climate, mountains tend to be used less for agriculture and more for resource extraction and recreation, the highest mountain on Earth is Mount Everest in the Himalayas of Asia, whose summit is 8,850 m above mean sea level. The highest known mountain on any planet in the Solar System is Olympus Mons on Mars at 21,171 m, there is no universally accepted definition of a mountain. Elevation, volume, relief, steepness, spacing and continuity have been used as criteria for defining a mountain, whether a landform is called a mountain may depend on local usage. The highest point in San Francisco, California, is called Mount Davidson, notwithstanding its height of 300 m, similarly, Mount Scott outside Lawton, Oklahoma is only 251 m from its base to its highest point. Whittows Dictionary of Physical Geography states Some authorities regard eminences above 600 metres as mountains, in addition, some definitions also include a topographical prominence requirement, typically 100 or 500 feet. For a while, the US defined a mountain as being 1,000 feet or taller, any similar landform lower than this height was considered a hill. However, today, the United States Geological Survey concludes that these terms do not have technical definitions in the US, using these definitions, mountains cover 33% of Eurasia, 19% of South America, 24% of North America, and 14% of Africa. As a whole, 24% of the Earths land mass is mountainous, there are three main types of mountains, volcanic, fold, and block. All three types are formed from plate tectonics, when portions of the Earths crust move, crumple, compressional forces, isostatic uplift and intrusion of igneous matter forces surface rock upward, creating a landform higher than the surrounding features. The height of the feature makes it either a hill or, if higher and steeper, major mountains tend to occur in long linear arcs, indicating tectonic plate boundaries and activity. Volcanoes are formed when a plate is pushed below another plate, at a depth of around 100 km, melting occurs in rock above the slab, and forms magma that reaches the surface. When the magma reaches the surface, it builds a volcanic mountain. Examples of volcanoes include Mount Fuji in Japan and Mount Pinatubo in the Philippines, the magma does not have to reach the surface in order to create a mountain, magma that solidifies below ground can still form dome mountains, such as Navajo Mountain in the US
10.
Clingmans Dome
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Clingmans Dome is a mountain in the Great Smoky Mountains of Tennessee and North Carolina, in the southeastern United States. At an elevation of 6,643 feet, it is the highest mountain in the Smokies, the highest point in the state of Tennessee, and it is also the third highest point in all of Eastern North America, after the nearby Mount Mitchell and Mount Craig. Clingmans Dome has two subpeaks,6, 560-foot Mount Buckley to the west and 6, 400-foot Mount Love to the east. The headwaters of several substantial streams are located on the slopes of Clingmans Dome, namely Little River on the north slope, the mountain is located entirely within the Tennessee River watershed. Clingmans Dome is protected as part of the Great Smoky Mountains National Park, a paved road connects it to U. S. Highway 441. The 45-foot concrete observation tower, built in 1959 and listed on the National Register of Historic Places, an air quality monitoring station, operated by the Environmental Protection Agency, is the second highest in eastern North America. Clingmans Dome stands prominently above the terrain, rising nearly 5,000 feet from base to summit. The forest on and around Clingmans Dome has experienced a large die-off of Fraser fir caused by the non-native insect, the Cherokee name for Clingmans Dome was Kuwahi, or mulberry place. In 1789, an act passed by the North Carolina legislature ceded what is now Tennessee to the federal government. This act fixed a portion of the boundary between the two along the crest of the Great Iron or Smoky Mountains, which would have included the now known as Clingmans Dome. The mountain was dubbed Smoky Dome by American settlers moving in from other areas, Mitchell contended that a peak by the name of Black Dome was the highest, while Clingman asserted that Smoky Dome was the true highest peak. Guyot determined that Black Dome was 39 feet higher than Smoky Dome, in the early morning hours of June 12,1946, a Boeing B-29 Superfortress crashed near the summit of Clingmans Dome, killing all twelve aboard. Clingmans Dome is part of a formation known as the Copperhill Formation. It consists predominately of massive, coarse-grained metagreywacke and metaconglomerate, the Lower northern flanks of Clingmans Dome are underlain by thick layers of sulfidic, quartz-garnet-muscovite phyllite and schist, which occur within the metagraywackes and metaconglomerates. Adjacent to and south of its summit, thin, southward-dipping, the Copperhill Formation is part of the greater Ocoee Supergroup, a body of clastic metasedimentary rocks formed 560 million years ago. They unconformably lie upon Precambrian granitic and gneissic rocks and these basins were rift basins formed by the rifting of Rodinia. The initial metamorphism of the Ocoee Supergroup occurred about 400 million years ago as the result of Ordovician-Silurian tectonism during the Taconic orogeny. During the latest part of this orogeny, this segment of the Appalachian Mountains was formed by thrust faulting and folding that uplifted these strata as a series of complexly deformed thrust sheets
