The Saint Elias Mountains () are a subgroup of the

Pacific Coast Ranges The Pacific Coast Ranges (officially gazetted as the Pacific Mountain System in the United States; ; ) are the series of mountain ranges that stretch along the West Coast of North America from Alaska south to Northern and Central Mexico. Althoug ...

, located in southeastern

Alaska Alaska ( ) is a non-contiguous U.S. state on the northwest extremity of North America. Part of the Western United States region, it is one of the two non-contiguous U.S. states, alongside Hawaii. Alaska is also considered to be the north ...

in the

United States The United States of America (USA), also known as the United States (U.S.) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It is a federal republic of 50 U.S. state, states and a federal capital district, Washington, D.C. The 48 ...

, Southwestern

Yukon Yukon () is a Provinces and territories of Canada, territory of Canada, bordering British Columbia to the south, the Northwest Territories to the east, the Beaufort Sea to the north, and the U.S. state of Alaska to the west. It is Canada’s we ...

and the very far northwestern part of

British Columbia British Columbia is the westernmost Provinces and territories of Canada, province of Canada. Situated in the Pacific Northwest between the Pacific Ocean and the Rocky Mountains, the province has a diverse geography, with rugged landscapes that ...

Canada Canada is a country in North America. Its Provinces and territories of Canada, ten provinces and three territories extend from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean and northward into the Arctic Ocean, making it the world's List of coun ...

. The range spans Wrangell-St. Elias National Park and Preserve in the United States and

Kluane National Park and Reserve Kluane National Park and Reserve (; ) are two protected areas in the southwest corner of the Provinces and territories of Canada, territory of Yukon. The National Park Reserve was set aside in 1972 to become a national park, pending settlement o ...

in Canada and includes all of

Glacier Bay National Park Glacier Bay National Park and Preserve is a List of national parks of the United States, national park of the United States located in Southeast Alaska west of Juneau, Alaska, Juneau. President Calvin Coolidge proclaimed the area around Glacier ...

. In Alaska, the range includes parts of the city/borough of Yakutat and the Hoonah-Angoon and Valdez-Cordova census areas. This mountain range is named after

Mount Saint Elias Mount Saint Elias (Was'eitushaa also designated Boundary Peak 186), the second-highest mountain in both Canada and the United States, stands on the Yukon and Alaska border about southwest of Mount Logan, the highest mountain in Canada. The Cana ...

, which in turn was named in 1741 by the Danish-born Russian explorer

Vitus Bering Vitus Jonassen Bering ( , , ; baptised 5 August 1681 – 19 December 1741),All dates are here given in the Julian calendar, which was in use throughout Russia at the time. also known as Ivan Ivanovich Bering (), was a Danish-born Russia ...

Geology

The Saint Elias Mountains form the highest coastal mountain range on Earth. It formed due to the

subduction Subduction is a geological process in which the oceanic lithosphere and some continental lithosphere is recycled into the Earth's mantle at the convergent boundaries between tectonic plates. Where one tectonic plate converges with a second p ...

of the Yakutat microplate underneath the North American Plate. The Yakutat microplate is a wedge shaped oceanic plateau with a thickness of . Similar to the adjacent Pacific Plate, which has a crustal thickness of , the Yakutat plate is moving northwestward at a rate of per year with respect to North America. The Yakutat plate is transported northwards along the active Fairweather Fault, which probably started more than 35 million years ago. Due to its thickness, the Yakutat plate is buoyant, resulting in surface uplift of the overriding North American plate, which formed the

Talkeetna Mountains The Talkeetna Mountains (''Dghelaay tahwt’aene'' in Ahtna) () are a mountain range in Alaska. The Matanuska and Susitna River valleys, with towns such as Trapper Creek, Talkeetna, Wasilla, Palmer, Sutton, and Chickaloon, roughly bound th ...

and the

Alaska Range The Alaska Range is a relatively narrow, mountain range in the Southcentral Alaska, southcentral region of the U.S. state of Alaska, from Lake Clark at its southwest endSources differ as to the exact delineation of the Alaska Range. ThBoard on G ...

Southcentral Alaska Southcentral Alaska (), also known as the Gulf Coast Region,Alaska Department of Commerce, Community, and Economic Development, Northern Opportunity Alaska's Economic Development Strategy, 2016, at 84 (Alaska 2016). Accessed June 1, 2023. https: ...

, located above the subducted part of the Yakutat plate. Yakutat Icefield

The Saint Elias Mountains formed at the plate boundary between the Yakutat and North American plates. The up-to--thick sediments that have been deposited on top of the Yakutat plate became imbricated and deformed as they were scraped off and compose today the southern (coastal) flanks of the St. Elias Mountains. In contrast the high elevated regions of the drainage divide (

Bagley Icefield The Bagley Icefield (also called Bagley Ice Valley) in southeastern Alaska is the second largest nonpolar icefield in North America. It was named after James W. Bagley, a USGS topographic engineer who developed the Bagley T-3 camera and mapped Al ...

Seward Glacier Seward is the name of: People Surname * Seward (surname) Middle name * William Seward Burroughs I (1857–1898), inventor of adding machine *William S. Burroughs (1914–1997), American novelist, poet, essayist and spoken word performer * John S ...

) and north of it are composed of rocks that are part of the North American plate. The highest peaks of the St. Elias Mountains are located in the high ice field region of the

Kluane National Park Kluane National Park and Reserve (; ) are two protected areas in the southwest corner of the territory of Yukon. The National Park Reserve was set aside in 1972 to become a national park, pending settlement of First Nations land claims. It cover ...

(

Mount Logan Mount Logan ( ) is the highest mountain in Canada and the second-highest peak in North America after Denali (McKinley). The mountain was named after Sir William Edmond Logan, a Canadian geologist and founder of the Geological Survey of Canada ...

Mount Vancouver Mount Vancouver is the 15th highest mountain in North America. Its southern side lies in Glacier Bay National Park and Preserve at the top of the Alaska panhandle, while its northern side is in Kluane National Park and Reserve in the southweste ...

) and north of the

Malaspina Glacier __NOTOC__ The Malaspina Glacier () in southeastern Alaska is the largest piedmont glacier in the world. Situated at the head of the Alaska Panhandle, it is about wide and long, with an area of some , approximately the same size as the state of ...

(

Mount Cook Aoraki / Mount Cook is the highest mountain in New Zealand. Its height, , is listed as . It is situated in the Southern Alps, the mountain range that runs the length of the South Island. A popular tourist destination, it is also a favourite ch ...

), in the region known as the St. Elias syntaxis. At the

syntaxis Syntaxis is a style in writing or in rhetoric that favors complex and a poetic style syntax, in contrast to the simple sentence structures of parataxis. For example, 19th-century German academic prose, and John Milton's ''Paradise Lost ...

region the tectonic style changes from

strike-slip In geology, a fault is a planar fracture or discontinuity in a volume of rock across which there has been significant displacement as a result of rock-mass movements. Large faults within Earth's crust result from the action of plate tectonic ...

motion along the Fairweather Fault to collision west of

Malaspina Strait Malaspina Strait is a strait in the northern Gulf of Georgia- Sunshine Coast region of British Columbia, Canada. It separates Texada Island from the upper Sunshine Coast- Malaspina Peninsula area on the adjacent mainland. The strait and the pe ...

. This tectonic transition concentrates stress in the crust at the syntaxis that together with efficient glacial erosion results in positive feedback processes that through time forms extreme high mountain peaks and local relief, and rapid exhumation of rocks from up to depths to the surface.

Ranges

The mountains are divided by the Duke Depression, with the shorter, more rounded Kluane Ranges to the east, and the higher Icefield Ranges to the west. Sub-ranges of the Saint Elias include the

Alsek Ranges The Alsek Ranges are the southeasternmost subdivision of the Saint Elias Mountains of the Pacific Cordillera. They span the region between the Alsek River, Glacier Bay and the Kelsall River (which is the route of the highway from Haines, Alaska t ...

, the

Fairweather Range The Fairweather Range is the unofficial name for a mountain range located in the U.S. state of Alaska and the Canadian province of British Columbia. It is the southernmost range of the Saint Elias Mountains. The northernmost section of the range i ...

, and the

Centennial Range The Centennial Range is a sub-range of the Saint Elias Mountains. It is located inside Kluane National Park and Reserve in the far west of Yukon, Yukon Territory in Canada. It consists of fourteen major peaks, and was named for Canada's Centennia ...

Highest mountains

The highest mountains of the range include:

Image

References

;Sources * * * {{Authority control Landforms of Chugach Census Area, Alaska Landforms of Copper River Census Area, Alaska Mountains of Unorganized Borough, Alaska Mountains of Yakutat City and Borough, Alaska Wrangell–St. Elias National Park and Preserve