The Long Range Mountains are a series of

mountain A mountain is an elevated portion of the Earth's crust, generally with steep sides that show significant exposed bedrock. Although definitions vary, a mountain may differ from a plateau in having a limited summit area, and is usually highe ...

s along the west coast of the

Canadian Canadians (french: Canadiens) are people identified with the country of Canada. This connection may be residential, legal, historical or cultural. For most Canadians, many (or all) of these connections exist and are collectively the source of ...

island of Newfoundland. The long range mountains form the northernmost section of the Appalachian mountain chain on the eastern seaboard of North America. Mapping of the Great Northern Peninsula was first done in the early 1900s by Mattie Mitchell,

Mi'kmaq The Mi'kmaq (also ''Mi'gmaq'', ''Lnu'', ''Miꞌkmaw'' or ''Miꞌgmaw''; ; ) are a First Nations people of the Northeastern Woodlands, indigenous to the areas of Canada's Atlantic Provinces and the Gaspé Peninsula of Quebec as well as the nort ...

chieftain, guide and explorer.Parks Canada – News Releases and Backgrounders
/ref> In 2003, it was announced that the International Appalachian Trail would be extended through the Long Range Mountains. A portion of the trail opened in 2006.

Description

The Great Northern Peninsula of Western Newfoundland contains the

Highland Highlands or uplands are areas of high elevation such as a mountainous region, elevated mountainous plateau or high hills. Generally speaking, upland (or uplands) refers to ranges of hills, typically from up to while highland (or highlands) is ...

s, the largest external basement

massif In geology, a massif ( or ) is a section of a planet's crust that is demarcated by faults or flexures. In the movement of the crust, a massif tends to retain its internal structure while being displaced as a whole. The term also refers to a ...

of the

Grenville Orogeny The Grenville orogeny was a long-lived Mesoproterozoic mountain-building event associated with the assembly of the supercontinent Rodinia. Its record is a prominent orogenic belt which spans a significant portion of the North American continent, f ...

in the Appalachian Orogen. This Precambrian basement is known as the Long Range Inlier, Long Range Complex or Basement

Gneiss Gneiss ( ) is a common and widely distributed type of metamorphic rock. It is formed by high-temperature and high-pressure metamorphic processes acting on formations composed of igneous or sedimentary rocks. Gneiss forms at higher temperatures a ...

Complex, consisting of

quartz Quartz is a hard, crystalline mineral composed of silica ( silicon dioxide). The atoms are linked in a continuous framework of SiO4 silicon-oxygen tetrahedra, with each oxygen being shared between two tetrahedra, giving an overall chemical ...

feldspar Feldspars are a group of rock-forming aluminium tectosilicate minerals, also containing other cations such as sodium, calcium, potassium, or barium. The most common members of the feldspar group are the ''plagioclase'' (sodium-calcium) felds ...

gneisses and

granite Granite () is a coarse-grained ( phaneritic) intrusive igneous rock composed mostly of quartz, alkali feldspar, and plagioclase. It forms from magma with a high content of silica and alkali metal oxides that slowly cools and solidifies under ...

s that are up to 1,550 million years in age. The Long Range dikes are

mafic A mafic mineral or rock is a silicate mineral or igneous rock rich in magnesium and iron. Most mafic minerals are dark in color, and common rock-forming mafic minerals include olivine, pyroxene, amphibole, and biotite. Common mafic rocks incl ...

in composition and have an age of about 605 million years. Running along the Gulf of St. Lawrence, the range includes the following sections: * Anguille Mountains, *

Lewis Hills The Lewis Hills is a section of the Long Range Mountains located on the west coast of Newfoundland, along the Gulf of Saint Lawrence. An ophiolite An ophiolite is a section of Earth's oceanic crust and the underlying upper mantle that has ...

, * Tablelands (a section of the Earth's mantle exposed at the surface) * main section of the Long Range Mountains (running northeast from the Tablelands through Gros Morne National Park)

References

{{Authority control Mountain ranges of Newfoundland and Labrador Subranges of the Appalachian Mountains

Description

See also

References