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The Blue Mountains ecoregion is a Level III ecoregion designated by the United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) in the Pacific Northwest, mainly in the state of Oregon, with small areas over the state border in Idaho and southeastern Washington. It is also contiguous with the World Wildlife Fund's Blue Mountain forests ecoregion.
The name "Cascadia" was first applied to the whole geologic region by Bates McKee in his 1972 geology textbook Cascadia; the geologic evolution of the Pacific Northwest. Later the name was adopted by David McCloskey, a Seattle University sociology professor, to describe it as a bioregion. McCloskey describes Cascadia as "a land of falling waters."
Soils are warmer here than in higher elevation ecoregions, and it is one of the most important timber producing areas in the Pacific Northwest. The steep valleys trending to the west contain high and medium gradient rivers and streams that support cold water salmonids, including the threatened Chinook salmon, steelhead, and bull trout.
The Pacific Northwest is a diverse geographic region, dominated by several mountain ranges, including the Coast Mountains, the Cascade Range, the Olympic Mountains, the Columbia Mountains, and the Rocky Mountains. The highest peak in the Pacific Northwest is Mount Rainier, in the Washington Cascades, at 14,410 feet (4,392 m).
The Pacific temperate rainforests lie along the western side of the Pacific Coast Ranges along the Pacific Northwest Coast of North America from the Prince William Sound in Alaska through the British Columbia Coast to Northern California, and are part of the Nearctic realm, as also defined by the World Wildlife Fund. The Pacific temperate rain ...
The region is strongly influenced by the large mountain ranges stretching throughout most of the coast. Changes in elevation cause changes in plant/animal diversity, this can be exemplified through observing the alpine tundra's vegetation which consists of shrubs, herbs, mosses, and lichens; while lower elevations, the temperate coastal forest hold magnificently large trees such as western ...
Of particular concern are signals of massive earthquakes in the region’s geologic history. Many researchers have chased clues of the last “big one”: an 8.7-magnitude earthquake in 1700.
The Klamath Mountains are a rugged and lightly populated mountain range in northwestern California and southwestern Oregon in the western United States.As a mountain system within both the greater Pacific Coast Ranges and the California Coast Ranges, the Klamath Mountains have a varied geology, with substantial areas of serpentinite and marble, and a climate characterized by moderately cold ...