Geology of the Rocky Mountains

High school (ages 12+)
Geography

Name:

Date:

Step 1 · Read the article

Open the article and read it at the level above. Then answer the questions below in your own words.

https://smallwhale.org/articles/geology-of-the-rocky-mountains

Write what each word means, using the article.

Do not copy the article. Write two things you learned, the way you would explain them to a friend.

Answers below are taken from the article’s stored facts, so they match what the student read.

1. What is the geographic extent?Stretches from Northern British Columbia, Canada, to central New Mexico, USA
2. What is the age of basement rocks?Precambrian crystalline basement rocks, some exceeding 1 billion years old
3. What are the Rocky Mountains made of?They are built on very old Precambrian crystalline rocks, some older than a billion years, and later layers of sedimentary and metamorphic rocks from earlier mountain ranges.
4. Why did the Rocky Mountains get so high?The Laramide orogeny, a mountain‑building period 80 to 55 million years ago, pushed up large blocks of crust, creating high plateaus and isolated ranges.

Orogeny: A process of mountain formation, especially by folding and faulting of the Earth's crust.
Plate Subduction: The process where one tectonic plate slides beneath another and sinks into the mantle.
Glacial Geomorphology: The study of landforms created by the action of glaciers.
Precambrian: The earliest eon of Earth's history, preceding the Phanerozoic Eon.