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Castle Mountain
At first glance, Castle Mountain resembles a medieval fortress with its rock layers turned into cliffs, terraces, and towers by the forces of erosion. This mountain type is best developed where there are alternating beds of resistant rocks, such as limestone, and easily eroded rocks, such as shale. As the softer layers erode, the harder rocks above are undermined and break off, slowly forming a mountain of vertical walls separated by sloping ledges.
Although the Main Ranges have the same southeast to northwest alignment as the Front Ranges, they lack the symmetry because of irregular drainage caused by extensive glaciation and horizontal layers. Main Range mountains are also generally higher than Front Range mountains because erosion, particularly by glaciers, wears away thick near-horizontal layers more slowly than the tilted folded layers. On the east side of Castle Mountain is Rockbound Lake. The large depression in which the water sits was carved out by glaciers during the last Ice Age. this sort of depression, which is common in the Rockies, is called a cirque.
Reprinted from A Traveler's Guide to Geological Wonders in Alberta by Ron Mussieux and Marilyn Nelson. With permission of the authors and the Provincial Museum of Alberta. |
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Updated July 29th, 2001 by KP |