The Chuckanut Mountains (from "Chuckanut", an Indian word meaning "long beach far from a narrow entrance"), or Chuckanuts, are located on the northern

Washington Washington commonly refers to: * Washington (state), United States * Washington, D.C., the capital of the United States ** A metonym for the federal government of the United States ** Washington metropolitan area, the metropolitan area centered o ...

state coast of the

Salish Sea , image = PNW-straits.jpg , alt = , caption = The Salish Sea, showing the open Pacific Ocean at lower left, and from there, heading inland: the Strait of Juan de Fuca, the narrow Puget Sound at lower r ...

, just south of

Bellingham, Washington Bellingham ( ) is the most populous city in, and county seat of Whatcom County in the U.S. state of Washington. It lies south of the U.S.–Canada border in between two major cities of the Pacific Northwest: Vancouver, British Columbia (lo ...

. Being a part of the Cascade Range, they are the only place where the Cascades come west down to meet the sea. The Chuckanuts are considered to be a part of the

Puget Lowland Forest Ecoregion Puget may refer to: * Puget (surname) * Puget, Vaucluse, a commune in France * Puget, Washington, a community in the United States See also * Puget Creek * Puget Island * Puget Sound *Puget-Ville Puget-Ville (; oc, Puget Vila) is a commune in ...

. The range contains

Larrabee State Park Larrabee State Park is a public recreation area located on Samish Bay on the western side of Chuckanut Mountain, south of the city of Bellingham, Washington. It was created in 1915 as Washington's first state park. The park covers and featu ...

, the first State Park to be designated in Washington (1923). Its mountains include: *Anderson Mountain * Blanchard Mountain *

Chuckanut Mountain The Chuckanut Mountains (from "Chuckanut", an Indian word meaning "long beach far from a narrow entrance"), or Chuckanuts, are located on the northern Washington state coast of the Salish Sea, just south of Bellingham, Washington. Being a part ...

(including North Chuckanut Mountain, South Chuckanut Mountain, and Chuckanut Ridge) *

Galbraith Mountain Galbraith Mountain is the common name for North Lookout Mountain, located between the communities of Sudden Valley and Bellingham, Washington. A area was owned by the Trillium Corporation until April 1, 2010, when the company surrendered the pr ...

(also known as North Lookout Mountain) * King Mountain *

Lookout Mountain Lookout Mountain is a mountain ridge located at the northwest corner of the U.S. state of Georgia, the northeast corner of Alabama, and along the southeastern Tennessee state line in Chattanooga. Lookout Mountain was the scene of the 18th-centu ...

* Sehome Hill *

Squalicum Mountain Squalicum High School is a public school in Bellingham, Washington, United States, and is part of the Bellingham School District. The school serves the northeast population of Bellingham, including the area surrounding Lake Whatcom. Squalic ...

* Stewart Mountain * Toad Mountain

Geology

The Chuckanut Mountains were formed by the folding of the

Chuckanut Formation The Chuckanut Formation in northwestern Washington (named after the Chuckanut Mountains, near Bellingham), its extension in southwestern British Columbia (the Huntingdon Formation), and various related formations in central Washington (incl ...

(which is predominantly made up of layers of 55-million-year-old

sandstone Sandstone is a clastic sedimentary rock composed mainly of sand-sized (0.0625 to 2 mm) silicate grains. Sandstones comprise about 20–25% of all sedimentary rocks. Most sandstone is composed of quartz or feldspar (both silicates ...

, conglomerate,

shale Shale is a fine-grained, clastic sedimentary rock formed from mud that is a mix of flakes of clay minerals (hydrous aluminium phyllosilicates, e.g. kaolin, Al2 Si2 O5( OH)4) and tiny fragments (silt-sized particles) of other minerals, especia ...

, and bituminous and sub-bituminous coal) and the later Huntingdon Formation (predominantly shale and sandstone) on top, as well as an exposed section of pre-Jurassic-age

phyllite Phyllite ( ) is a type of foliated metamorphic rock created from slate that is further metamorphosed so that very fine grained white mica achieves a preferred orientation.Stephen Marshak ''Essentials of Geology'', 3rd ed. It is primarily compo ...

. The Chuckanuts are well known for their Tertiary Period leaf fossils. In 1988, an outcrop of

metamorphic Metamorphic rocks arise from the transformation of existing rock to new types of rock in a process called metamorphism. The original rock ( protolith) is subjected to temperatures greater than and, often, elevated pressure of or more, cau ...

phyllite, green chert, and milk quartz on Blanchard Mountain was exposed by a construction crew. The outcrop is unique for its unusually large chunks of

stilpnomelane Stilpnomelane is a phyllosilicate mineral. It has the chemical formula . Stilpnomelane occurs associated with banded iron formations. It is a metamorphic mineral associated with the blueschist and greenschist facies. It was first described in 18 ...

References

External links

* Mountain ranges of Washington (state) North Cascades of Washington (state) Landforms of Whatcom County, Washington {{WhatcomCountyWA-geo-stub