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Mount Whitney is the highest mountain peak in the Sierra Nevada, the State of California, and the contiguous United States. The following list comprises the mountain ranges of U.S. State of California designated by the United States Board on Geographic Names and cataloged in the Geographic Names Information System .
Since 1929, the State of California considered purchasing the land for protection and a state park. [24] In 2003, the California Department of Parks and Recreation purchased 1,784.5 acres (7.222 km 2) in Peace Valley, on the north side of the Sutter Buttes, for $3 million with the intent to develop it as a state park. In 2005 the Parks ...
Map of California topography and geomorphic provinces California's major mountain ranges. California is a U.S. state on the western coast of North America. Covering an area of 163,696 sq mi (423,970 km 2), California is among the most geographically diverse states. The Sierra Nevada, the fertile farmlands of the Central Valley, and the arid ...
The Sierra Nevada (/ s i ˌ ɛr ə n ɪ ˈ v æ d ə,-ˈ v ɑː d-/ see-ERR-ə nih-VA(H)D-ə) [6] [a] is a mountain range in the Western United States, between the Central Valley of California and the Great Basin. The vast majority of the range lies in the state of California, although the Carson Range spur lies primarily in Nevada.
[2]: 11 The range forms the steepest coastal slope in the contiguous United States. [2] Cone Peak at 5,158 feet (1,572 m) tall and three miles (5 km) from the coast, is the highest peak in proximity to the ocean in the lower 48 United States. [3] The range was a barrier to exploring the coast of central California for early Spanish explorers.
The Central Valley is a broad, elongated, flat valley that dominates the interior of California, United States.It is 40–60 mi (60–100 km) wide and runs approximately 450 mi (720 km) from north-northwest to south-southeast, inland from and parallel to the Pacific coast of the state.
The lowest-elevation biotic zone in the Sierra Nevada is found along the boundary with the Central Valley. [5] This zone, stretching in elevation from 500 to 3,500 feet (150 to 1,070 m), is the foothill woodland zone, an area that is hot and dry in the summer with very little or no snow in the winter. [5]
The oldest rocks in California date back 1.8 billion years to the Proterozoic and are found in the San Gabriel Mountains, San Bernardino Mountains, and Mojave Desert.The rocks of eastern California formed a shallow continental shelf, with massive deposition of limestone during the Paleozoic, and sediments from this time are common in the Sierra Nevada, Klamath Mountains and eastern Transverse ...