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80-580: The Gore Range (elevation approximately 12,000 ft) is a mountain range in the Rocky Mountains of north central Colorado in the United States . The native Ute name was the Shining Mountains. The range runs for approximately 60 miles (100 km) northwest-to-southeast, through western Grand and Summit counties, and eastern Routt and Eagle counties. They form the southern extension of

160-402: A curved surface , the concept of straight lines is replaced by a more general concept of geodesics , curves which are locally straight with respect to the surface. Geodesics on the sphere are great circles, circles whose center coincides with the center of the sphere. Any two distinct points on a sphere that are not antipodal (diametrically opposite) both lie on a unique great circle, which

240-525: A 1% difference. So long as a spherical Earth is assumed, any single formula for distance on the Earth is only guaranteed correct within 0.5% (though better accuracy is possible if the formula is only intended to apply to a limited area). Using the mean Earth radius , R 1 = 1 3 ( 2 a + b ) ≈ 6371.009  km {\textstyle R_{1}={\frac {1}{3}}(2a+b)\approx 6371.009{\text{ km}}} (for

320-567: A European was in the journal of Jacques Legardeur de Saint-Pierre in 1752, where they were called " montagnes de Roche ". Another name given to the place by the Cree is ᐊᓭᓂᐓᒉ Aseniwuche . The Rocky Mountains are the easternmost portion of the expansive North American Cordillera . They are often defined as stretching from the Liard River in British Columbia south to the headwaters of

400-683: A description of Green Mountain Reservoir Trail. Rocky Mountains The Rocky Mountains , also known as the Rockies , are a major mountain range and the largest mountain system in North America . The Rocky Mountains stretch 3,000 miles (4,800 kilometers) in straight-line distance from the northernmost part of Western Canada , to New Mexico in the Southwestern United States . Depending on differing definitions between Canada and

480-523: A mixture of white pine, fir, and spruce that appear as shrub-like krummholz . Finally, rivers and canyons can create a unique forest zone in more arid parts of the mountain range. The Rocky Mountains are an important habitat for a great deal of well-known wildlife, such as wolves , elk , moose , mule and white-tailed deer , pronghorn , mountain goats , bighorn sheep , badgers , black bears , grizzly bears , coyotes , lynxes , cougars , and wolverines . North America's largest herds of elk are in

560-853: A similar relationship to tourism promotions by the Great Northern Railway . While settlers filled the valleys and mining towns, conservation and preservation ethics began to take hold. U.S. President Benjamin Harrison established several forest reserves in the Rocky Mountains in 1891–1892. In 1905, U.S. President Theodore Roosevelt extended the Medicine Bow Forest Reserve to include the area now managed as Rocky Mountain National Park . Economic development began to center on mining, forestry , agriculture, and recreation , as well as on

640-534: Is accurate for all distances is the following special case of the Vincenty formula for an ellipsoid with equal major and minor axes: where ⁠ atan2 ⁡ ( y , x ) {\displaystyle \operatorname {atan2} (y,x)} ⁠ is the two-argument arctangent . Using atan2 ensures that the correct quadrant is chosen. Another representation of similar formulas, but using normal vectors instead of latitude and longitude to describe

720-758: Is in the Rocky Mountains and designates the line at which waters flow either to the Atlantic or Pacific Oceans. Triple Divide Peak (2,440 m or 8,020 ft) in Glacier National Park is so named because water falling on the mountain reaches not only the Atlantic and Pacific but Hudson Bay as well. Farther north in Alberta, the Athabasca and other rivers feed the basin of the Mackenzie River , which has its outlet on

800-680: Is natural gas that arises from coal, either through bacterial action or through exposure to high temperature. Coalbed methane supplies 7 percent of the natural gas used in the U.S. The largest coalbed methane sources in the Rocky Mountains are in the San Juan Basin in New Mexico and Colorado and the Powder River Basin in Wyoming. These two basins are estimated to contain 38 trillion cubic feet of gas. Coalbed methane can be recovered by dewatering

880-690: Is proportional to the central angle. The great circle chord length, Δ σ c {\displaystyle \Delta \sigma _{\text{c}}\,\!} , may be calculated as follows for the corresponding unit sphere, by means of Cartesian subtraction : Substituting λ 1 = − 1 2 Δ λ {\displaystyle \lambda _{1}=-{\tfrac {1}{2}}\Delta \lambda } and λ 2 = 1 2 Δ λ {\displaystyle \lambda _{2}={\tfrac {1}{2}}\Delta \lambda } this formula can be algebraically manipulated to

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960-406: Is related with the chord length of unit sphere Δ σ c {\displaystyle \Delta \sigma _{\text{c}}\,\!} : For short-distance approximation ( | Δ σ c | ≪ 1 {\displaystyle |\Delta \sigma _{\text{c}}|\ll 1} ), On computer systems with low floating point precision,

1040-528: Is somewhat lower than the southern section, along the western side of the valley of the Blue River . The ridges of the range are prominently visible on clear days from the summit of Trail Ridge Road in Rocky Mountain National Park approximately 50 miles (80 km) to the east. The range is traversed at its southern and southwestern lower flanks by Interstate 70 from Silverthorne to Vail. Much of

1120-647: The 49th parallel north as the international boundary west from Lake of the Woods to the "Stony Mountains"; the UK and the US agreed to what has since been described as "joint occupancy" of lands further west to the Pacific Ocean. Resolution of the territorial and treaty issues, the Oregon dispute , was deferred until a later time. In 1819, Spain ceded their rights north of the 42nd Parallel to

1200-479: The Alberta–British Columbia foothills forests . The status of most species in the Rocky Mountains is unknown, due to incomplete information. European-American settlement of the mountains has adversely impacted native species. Examples of some species that have declined include western toads , greenback cutthroat trout , white sturgeon , white-tailed ptarmigan , trumpeter swan , and bighorn sheep. In

1280-539: The Apache , Arapaho , Bannock , Blackfoot , Cheyenne , Coeur d'Alene , Kalispel , Crow Nation , Flathead , Shoshone , Sioux , Ute , Kutenai (Ktunaxa in Canada), Sekani , Dunne-za , and others. Paleo-Indians hunted the now-extinct mammoth and ancient bison (an animal 20% larger than modern bison) in the foothills and valleys of the mountains. Like the modern tribes that followed them, Paleo-Indians probably migrated to

1360-777: The Beaufort Sea of the Arctic Ocean. Human population is not very dense in the Rockies, with an average of four people per square kilometer and few cities with over 50,000 people. However, the human population grew rapidly in the Rocky Mountain states between 1950 and 1990. The forty-year statewide increases in population range from 35% in Montana to about 150% in Utah and Colorado. The populations of several mountain towns and communities have doubled in

1440-678: The Bull Lake Glaciation , which began about 150,000 years ago, and the Pinedale Glaciation , which perhaps remained at full glaciation until 15,000–20,000 years ago. All of these geological processes exposed a complex set of rocks at the surface. For example, volcanic rock from the Paleogene and Neogene periods (66 million – 2.6 million years ago) occurs in the San Juan Mountains and in other areas. Millennia of severe erosion in

1520-583: The Canadian Pacific Railway eventually followed the Kicking Horse and Rogers Passes to the Pacific Ocean. Canadian railway officials also convinced Parliament to set aside vast areas of the Canadian Rockies as Jasper , Banff , Yoho , and Waterton Lakes National Parks , laying the foundation for a tourism industry which thrives to this day. Glacier National Park (MT) was established with

1600-854: The Canadian Rockies . The eastern edge of the Rockies rises dramatically above the Interior Plains of central North America, including the Sangre de Cristo Mountains of New Mexico and Colorado , the Front Range of Colorado, the Wind River Range and Big Horn Mountains of Wyoming , the Absaroka - Beartooth ranges and Rocky Mountain Front of Montana and the Clark Range of Alberta . Central ranges of

1680-503: The Climax mine, near Leadville, Colorado , was the largest producer of molybdenum in the world. Molybdenum is used in heat-resistant steel in such things as cars and planes. The Climax mine employed over 3,000 workers. The Coeur d'Alene mine of northern Idaho produces silver, lead, and zinc. Canada's largest coal mines are near Fernie, British Columbia and Sparwood , British Columbia; additional coal mines exist near Hinton, Alberta , and in

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1760-731: The Columbia District for Britain. The party crossed the Rockies into the Columbia Valley , a region of the Rocky Mountain Trench near present-day Radium Hot Springs , British Columbia, then traveled south. Despite such efforts, in 1846, Britain ceded all claim to Columbia District lands south of the 49th parallel to the United States; as resolution to the Oregon boundary dispute by the Oregon Treaty . Thousands passed through

1840-504: The Lewis and Clark Expedition , natural resources such as minerals and fur drove the initial economic exploitation of the mountains, although the range itself never experienced a dense population. Most of the highest summits of the Rocky Mountains are in Colorado , with that state having an average elevation in excess of 2,000 metres (6,600 ft). Public parks and forest lands protect much of

1920-646: The Liard River and east of the Rocky Mountain Trench , and do not extend into Yukon , Northwest Territories or central British Columbia . They are divided into three main groups: the Muskwa Ranges , Hart Ranges (collectively called the Northern Rockies ) and Continental Ranges . Other more northerly mountain ranges of the eastern Canadian Cordillera continue beyond the Liard River valley, including

2000-508: The North American plate . The angle of subduction was shallow, resulting in a broad belt of mountains running down western North America. Since then, further tectonic activity and erosion by glaciers have sculpted the Rockies into dramatic peaks and valleys. At the end of the last ice age , humans began inhabiting the mountain range. After explorations of the range by Europeans, such as Sir Alexander Mackenzie , and Anglo-Americans, such as

2080-621: The Paleozoic , western North America lay underneath a shallow sea, which deposited many kilometers of limestone and dolomite . In the southern Rockies, near present-day Colorado, these ancestral rocks were disturbed by mountain building approximately 300 Ma , during the Pennsylvanian . This mountain-building produced the Ancestral Rocky Mountains. They consisted largely of Precambrian metamorphic rock forced upward through layers of

2160-625: The Park Range , extending southward from Rabbit Ears Pass ( U.S. Highway 40 ) to the Eagle River and Gore Creek near Vail . The Colorado River passes through the range at Gore Canyon . The range forms part of the western boundary of Middle Park at the headwaters of the Colorado, separating it from the upper basin of the Yampa River to the west. The northern section of the range north of Gore Pass

2240-569: The Pecos River , a tributary of the Rio Grande , in New Mexico. The Rockies vary in width from 110 to 480 kilometres (70 to 300 miles). The Rocky Mountains contain the highest peaks in central North America. The range's highest peak is Mount Elbert in Colorado at 4,401 metres (14,440 feet) above sea level. Mount Robson in British Columbia, at 3,954 m (12,972 ft), is the highest peak in

2320-598: The Rio Grande rift and north of the Sandia–Manzano Mountain Range . Being the easternmost portion of the North American Cordillera , the Rockies are distinct from the tectonically younger Cascade Range and Sierra Nevada , which both lie farther to its west. The Rockies formed 55 million to 80 million years ago during the Laramide orogeny , in which a number of plates began sliding underneath

2400-666: The Sawtooths in central Idaho. The Great Basin and Columbia River Plateau separate these subranges from distinct ranges further to the west. In Canada, the western edge of the Rockies is formed by the huge Rocky Mountain Trench , which runs the length of British Columbia from its beginning as the Kechika Valley on the south bank of the Liard River , to the middle Lake Koocanusa valley in northwestern Montana. The Canadian Rockies are defined by Canadian geographers as everything south of

2480-777: The Selwyn , Mackenzie and Richardson Mountains in Yukon as well as the British Mountains / Brooks Range in Alaska , but those are not officially recognized as part of the Rockies by the Geological Survey of Canada , although the Geological Society of America definition does consider them parts of the Rocky Mountains system as the "Arctic Rockies". The Continental Divide of the Americas

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2560-485: The Wyoming Basin transformed intermountain basins into a relatively flat terrain. The Tetons and other north-central ranges contain folded and faulted rocks of Paleozoic and Mesozoic age draped above cores of Proterozoic and Archean igneous and metamorphic rocks ranging in age from 1.2 billion (e.g., Tetons) to more than 3.3 billion years ( Beartooth Mountains ). There are a wide range of environmental factors in

2640-640: The "Rockies", becoming the first Europeans to report on this uncharted mountain range. Sir Alexander Mackenzie (1764 – March 11, 1820) became the first European to cross the Rocky Mountains in 1793. He found the upper reaches of the Fraser River and reached the Pacific coast of what is now Canada on July 20 of that year, completing the first recorded transcontinental crossing of North America north of Mexico. He arrived at Bella Coola, British Columbia , where he first reached saltwater at South Bentinck Arm, an inlet of

2720-574: The Ancestral Rocky Mountains. Such sedimentary remnants were often tilted at steep angles along the flanks of the modern range; they are now visible in many places throughout the Rockies, and are shown along the Dakota Hogback , an early Cretaceous sandstone formation running along the eastern flank of the modern Rockies. Just after the Laramide orogeny, the Rockies were like Tibet : a high plateau, probably 6,000 metres (20,000 ft) above sea level. In

2800-641: The California and Alaska gold rushes combined and was important in the financing of the Union Army during the American Civil War . The transcontinental railroad was completed in 1869, and Yellowstone National Park was established as the world's first national park in 1872. Meanwhile, a transcontinental railroad in Canada was originally promised in 1871. Though political complications pushed its completion to 1885,

2880-416: The Dakotas, Montana, Wyoming and Colorado. The figures are difficult to substantiate, but Gore himself claimed to have killed more than 2,000 buffalo, 1,600 elk and deer and 100 bears for sport, with the carcasses being left to rot. Green Mountain Reservoir Trail is in the northern Gore Range, part of the Rocky Mountains in the U.S. state of Colorado . It is located among the developed campgrounds along

2960-623: The Earth. The haversine formula is numerically better-conditioned for small distances by using the chord-length relation: Historically, the use of this formula was simplified by the availability of tables for the haversine function: hav ⁡ θ = sin 2 ⁡ θ 2 {\displaystyle \operatorname {hav} \theta =\sin ^{2}{\frac {\theta }{2}}} and archav ⁡ x = 2 arcsin ⁡ x {\displaystyle \operatorname {archav} x=2\arcsin {\sqrt {x}}} . The following shows

3040-430: The Native American cultures. Native American populations were extirpated from most of their historical ranges by disease, warfare, habitat loss (eradication of the bison), and continued assaults on their culture. In 1739, French fur traders Pierre and Paul Mallet, while journeying through the Great Plains, discovered a range of mountains at the headwaters of the Platte River , which local American Indian tribes called

3120-529: The Northern Rockies surrounding Tumbler Ridge, British Columbia . Abandoned mines with their wakes of mine tailings and toxic wastes dot the Rocky Mountain landscape. In one major example, eighty years of zinc mining profoundly polluted the river and bank near Eagle River in north-central Colorado. High concentrations of the metal carried by spring runoff harmed algae , moss , and trout populations. An economic analysis of mining effects at this site revealed declining property values, degraded water quality, and

3200-492: The Pacific Ocean. The Lewis and Clark Expedition (1804–1806) was the first scientific reconnaissance of the Rocky Mountains. Specimens were collected for contemporary botanists, zoologists, and geologists. The expedition was said to have paved the way to (and through) the Rocky Mountains for European-Americans from the East, although Lewis and Clark met at least 11 European-American mountain men during their travels. Mountain men , primarily French, Spanish, and British, roamed

3280-454: The Plains and the Alpine tundra . The Great Plains lie to the east of the Rockies and is characterized by prairie grasses (below roughly 550 m or 1,800 ft). Alpine tundra occurs in regions above the tree-line for the Rocky Mountains, which varies from 3,700 m (12,000 ft) in New Mexico to 760 m (2,500 ft) at the northern end of the Rockies (near the Yukon). The U.S. Geological Survey defines ten forested zones in

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3360-423: The Rockies include the La Sal Range along the Utah -Colorado border, the Abajo Mountains and Henry Mountains of Southeastern Utah, the Uinta Range of Utah and Wyoming, and the Teton Range of Wyoming and Idaho. The western edge of the Rockies includes ranges such as the Wasatch near Salt Lake City , the San Juan Mountains of New Mexico and Colorado, the Bitterroots along the Idaho-Montana border, and

3440-464: The Rockies. Zones in more southern, warmer, or drier areas are defined by the presence of pinyon pines / junipers , ponderosa pines , or oaks mixed with pines . In more northern, colder, or wetter areas, zones are defined by Douglas firs , Cascadian species (such as western hemlock ), lodgepole pines / quaking aspens , or firs mixed with spruce . Near tree-line, zones can consist of white pines (such as whitebark pine or bristlecone pine ); or

3520-410: The Rocky Mountains from 1720 to 1800 seeking mineral deposits and furs. The fur-trading North West Company established Rocky Mountain House as a trading post in what is now the Rocky Mountain Foothills of present-day Alberta in 1799, and their business rivals the Hudson's Bay Company established Acton House nearby. These posts served as bases for most European activity in the Canadian Rockies in

3600-485: The Rocky Mountains is one of more rapid change. The Spanish explorer Francisco Vázquez de Coronado —with a group of soldiers and missionaries marched into the Rocky Mountain region from the south in 1540. In 1610, the Spanish founded the city of Santa Fe , the oldest continuous seat of government in the United States, at the foot of the Rockies in present-day New Mexico. The introduction of the horse, metal tools, rifles, new diseases, and different cultures profoundly changed

3680-442: The Rocky Mountains on the Oregon Trail beginning in the 1840s. The Mormons began settling near the Great Salt Lake in 1847. From 1859 to 1864, gold was discovered in Colorado, Idaho, Montana, and British Columbia, sparking several gold rushes bringing thousands of prospectors and miners to explore every mountain and canyon and to create the Rocky Mountains' first major industry. The Idaho gold rush alone produced more gold than

3760-436: The Rocky Mountains. The Rockies range in latitude between the Liard River in British Columbia (at 59° N) and the Rio Grande in New Mexico (at 35° N). Prairie occurs at or below 550 metres (1,800 ft), while the highest peak in the range is Mount Elbert at 4,400 metres (14,440 ft). Precipitation ranges from 250 millimetres (10 in) per year in the southern valleys to 1,500 millimetres (60 in) per year locally in

3840-404: The U.S. portion of the mountain range, apex predators such as grizzly bears and wolf packs had been extirpated from their original ranges, but have partially recovered due to conservation measures and reintroduction . Other recovering species include the bald eagle and the peregrine falcon . Since the last great ice age, the Rocky Mountains were home first to indigenous peoples including

3920-418: The U.S., its northern terminus is located either in northern British Columbia 's Terminal Range south of the Liard River and east of the Trench , or in the northeastern foothills of the Brooks Range / British Mountains that face the Beaufort Sea coasts between the Canning River and the Firth River across the Alaska - Yukon border. Its southernmost point is near the Albuquerque area adjacent to

4000-433: The United Kingdom and the United States over the next few decades failed to settle upon a compromise boundary and the Oregon Dispute became important in geopolitical diplomacy between the British Empire and the new American Republic. In 1841, James Sinclair , Chief Factor of the Hudson's Bay Company, guided some 200 settlers from the Red River Colony west to bolster settlement around Fort Vancouver in an attempt to retain

4080-501: The United States, though these rights did not include possession and also included obligations to Britain and Russia concerning their claims in the same region. After 1802, fur traders and explorers ushered in the first widespread American presence in the Rockies south of the 49th parallel. The more famous of these include William Henry Ashley , Jim Bridger , Kit Carson , John Colter , Thomas Fitzpatrick , Andrew Henry , and Jedediah Smith . On July 24, 1832, Benjamin Bonneville led

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4160-428: The coal bed, and separating the gas from the water; or injecting water to fracture the coal to release the gas (so-called hydraulic fracturing ). Agriculture and forestry are major industries. Agriculture includes dryland and irrigated farming and livestock grazing. Livestock are frequently moved between high-elevation summer pastures and low-elevation winter pastures, a practice known as transhumance . Every year

4240-451: The early 19th century. Among the most notable are the expeditions of David Thompson , who followed the Columbia River to the Pacific Ocean. On his 1811 expedition, he camped at the junction of the Columbia River and the Snake River and erected a pole and notice claiming the area for the United Kingdom and stating the intention of the North West Company to build a fort at the site. By the Anglo-American Convention of 1818 , which established

4320-417: The edge of the North American Plate boundary, far to the west of the Rocky Mountain region. It was not until 80 Ma that these effects began reaching the Rockies. The current Rocky Mountains arose in the Laramide orogeny from between 80 and 55 Ma. For the Canadian Rockies, the mountain building is analogous to pushing a rug on a hardwood floor: the rug bunches up and forms wrinkles (mountains). In Canada,

4400-413: The equator, the circle that best approximates that line has a radius of b 2 a {\textstyle {\frac {b^{2}}{a}}} (which equals the meridian's semi-latus rectum ), or 6335.439 km, while the spheroid at the poles is best approximated by a sphere of radius a 2 b {\textstyle {\frac {a^{2}}{b}}} , or 6399.594 km,

4480-468: The equivalent formula expressing the chord length explicitly: where ϕ m = 1 2 ( ϕ 1 + ϕ 2 ) {\displaystyle \phi _{\text{m}}={\tfrac {1}{2}}(\phi _{1}+\phi _{2})} . Although this formula is accurate for most distances on a sphere, it too suffers from rounding errors for the special (and somewhat unusual) case of antipodal points. A formula that

4560-442: The expression based on arctan is the only one that is well-conditioned for all angles . The expression based on arctan requires the magnitude of the cross product over the dot product. A line through three-dimensional space between points of interest on a spherical Earth is the chord of the great circle between the points. The central angle between the two points can be determined from the chord length. The great circle distance

4640-510: The first wagon train across the Rocky Mountains by using South Pass in the present State of Wyoming. Similarly, in the wake of Mackenzie's 1793 expedition, fur trading posts were established west of the Northern Rockies in a region of the northern Interior Plateau of British Columbia which came to be known as New Caledonia , beginning with Fort McLeod (today's community of McLeod Lake) and Fort Fraser , but ultimately focused on Stuart Lake Post (today's Fort St. James ). Negotiations between

4720-409: The form shown above in § Computational formulae . The shape of the Earth closely resembles a flattened sphere (a spheroid ) with equatorial radius a {\displaystyle a} of 6378.137 km; distance b {\displaystyle b} from the center of the spheroid to each pole is 6356.7523142 km. When calculating the length of a short north-south line at

4800-417: The forty years 1972–2012. Jackson, Wyoming , increased 260%, from 1,244 to 4,472 residents, in those forty years. The rocks in the Rocky Mountains were formed before the mountains were raised by tectonic forces. The oldest rock is Precambrian metamorphic rock that forms the core of the North American continent. There is also Precambrian sedimentary argillite , dating back to 1.7 billion years ago. During

4880-399: The geographical longitude and latitude of two points 1 and 2, and Δ λ , Δ ϕ {\displaystyle \Delta \lambda ,\Delta \phi } be their absolute differences; then Δ σ {\displaystyle \Delta \sigma } , the central angle between them, is given by the spherical law of cosines if one of

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4960-469: The last sixty million years, erosion stripped away the high rocks, revealing the ancestral rocks beneath, and forming the current landscape of the Rockies. Periods of glaciation occurred from the Pleistocene Epoch (1.8 million – 70,000 years ago) to the Holocene Epoch (fewer than 11,000 years ago). These ice ages left their mark on the Rockies, forming extensive glacial landforms, such as U-shaped valleys and cirques . Recent glacial episodes included

5040-406: The limestone laid down in the shallow sea. The mountains eroded throughout the late Paleozoic and early Mesozoic , leaving extensive deposits of sedimentary rock . Terranes began colliding with the western edge of North America in the Mississippian (approximately 350 million years ago), causing the Antler orogeny . For 270 million years, the focus of the effects of plate collisions were near

5120-456: The loss of recreational opportunities. The analysis also revealed that cleanup of the river could yield $ 2.3 million in additional revenue from recreation. In 1983, the former owner of the zinc mine was sued by the Colorado Attorney General for the $ 4.8 million cleanup costs; five years later, ecological recovery was considerable. The Rocky Mountains contain several sedimentary basins that are rich in coalbed methane . Coalbed methane

5200-425: The mountain range, and they are popular tourist destinations, especially for hiking, camping, mountaineering, fishing, hunting, mountain biking, snowmobiling, skiing, and snowboarding. The name of the mountains is a calque of an Algonquian name, specifically Plains Cree ᐊᓯᓃᐘᒋᐩ asinîwaciy (originally transcribed as-sin-wati ), literally "rocky mountain / alp". The first mention of their present name by

5280-450: The normal 300 to 500 kilometres (200 to 300 mi). Scientists hypothesize that the shallow angle of the subducting plate increased the friction and other interactions with the thick continental mass above it. Tremendous thrusts piled sheets of crust on top of each other, building the broad, high Rocky Mountain range. The current southern Rockies were forced upwards through the layers of Pennsylvanian and Permian sedimentary remnants of

5360-484: The northern peaks. Average January temperatures can range from −7 °C (20 °F) in Prince George, British Columbia, to 6 °C (43 °F) in Trinidad, Colorado . Therefore, there is no single monolithic ecosystem for the entire Rocky Mountain Range. Instead, ecologists divide the Rockies into a number of biotic zones . Each zone is defined by whether it can support trees and the presence of one or more indicator species . Two zones that do not support trees are

5440-478: The plains in fall and winter for bison and to the mountains in spring and summer for fish, deer, elk, roots, and berries. In Colorado, along with the crest of the Continental Divide, rock walls that Native Americans built for driving game date back 5,400–5,800 years. A growing body of scientific evidence indicates that indigenous people had significant effects on mammal populations by hunting and on vegetation patterns through deliberate burning. Recent human history of

5520-413: The points separate into two arcs; the length of the shorter arc is the great-circle distance between the points. This arc length is proportional to the central angle between the points, which if measured in radians can be scaled up by the sphere's radius to obtain the arc length. Two antipodal points both lie on infinitely many great circles, each of which they divide into two arcs of length π times

5600-420: The poles is used as an auxiliary third point on the sphere: The problem is normally expressed in terms of finding the central angle Δ σ {\displaystyle \Delta \sigma } . Given this angle in radians, the actual arc length d on a sphere of radius r can be trivially computed as The central angle Δ σ {\displaystyle \Delta \sigma }

5680-411: The positions, is found by means of 3D vector algebra , using the dot product , cross product , or a combination: where n 1 {\displaystyle \mathbf {n} _{1}} and n 2 {\displaystyle \mathbf {n} _{2}} are the normals to the sphere at the two positions 1 and 2. Similarly to the equations above based on latitude and longitude,

5760-627: The radius. The determination of the great-circle distance is part of the more general problem of great-circle navigation , which also computes the azimuths at the end points and intermediate way-points. Because the Earth is nearly spherical , great-circle distance formulas applied to longitude and geodetic latitude of points on Earth are accurate to within about 0.5%. Let λ 1 , ϕ 1 {\displaystyle \lambda _{1},\phi _{1}} and λ 2 , ϕ 2 {\displaystyle \lambda _{2},\phi _{2}} be

5840-628: The range is located within the Arapaho and White River National Forests, and large portions are protected within the Eagles Nest Wilderness . The range was named for Sir St George Gore, 8th Baronet , an Irish hunter who visited the area in the 1850s on a notorious hunting expedition throughout the American West . Gore's three-year stopover in the American West had him traversing what is today

5920-595: The sagebrush, many wildflowers bloom. Green Mountain Trail winds through sagebrush fields among the campsites on the eastern shore of Green Mountain Reservoir . Wildflowers that may be found in late spring include buttercup , mountain ball cactus , moss campion , Wyoming paintbrush Castilleja and alpine phlox . Greatest Hikes in Central Colorado: Summit and Eagle Counties, a hiking guide by Kim Fenske, provides

6000-685: The scenic areas of the Rocky Mountains draw millions of tourists. The main language of the Rocky Mountains is English. But there are also linguistic pockets of Spanish and indigenous languages. People from all over the world visit the sites to hike, camp, or engage in mountain sports . In the summer season, examples of tourist attractions are: In the United States: In Canada, the mountain range contains these national parks : Glacier National Park in Montana and Waterton Lakes National Park in Alberta border each other and are collectively known as Waterton-Glacier International Peace Park . In

6080-494: The service industries that support them. Tents and camps became ranches and farms, forts and train stations became towns, and some towns became cities. Economic resources of the Rocky Mountains are varied and abundant. Minerals found in the Rocky Mountains include significant deposits of copper, gold, lead, molybdenum , silver, tungsten , and zinc . The Wyoming Basin and several smaller areas contain significant reserves of coal, natural gas, oil shale , and petroleum. For example,

6160-460: The shore of Green Mountain Reservoir , Summit County . Green Mountain Reservoir is north of Interstate 70 , west of Highway 9 , north of Silverthorne and near Heeney . Green Mountain projects skyward at the north end of Green Mountain Reservoir, with an escarpment that may interest rock climbers and abandoned mines that place the area in historical context. Below the peak, the surrounding hills are high desert , covered in sagebrush. Among

6240-407: The spherical law of cosines formula can have large rounding errors if the distance is small (if the two points are a kilometer apart on the surface of the Earth, the cosine of the central angle is near 0.99999999). For modern 64-bit floating-point numbers , the spherical law of cosines formula, given above, does not have serious rounding errors for distances larger than a few meters on the surface of

6320-632: The terranes and subduction are the foot pushing the rug, the ancestral rocks are the rug, and the Canadian Shield in the middle of the continent is the hardwood floor. Further south, an unusual subduction may have caused the growth of the Rocky Mountains in the United States, where the Farallon Plate dove at a shallow angle below the North American Plate . This low angle moved the focus of melting and mountain building much farther inland than

6400-775: The winter, skiing is the main attraction, with dozens of Rocky Mountain ski areas and resorts . The adjacent Columbia Mountains in British Columbia contain major resorts such as Panorama and Kicking Horse , as well as Mount Revelstoke National Park and Glacier National Park. There are numerous provincial parks in the British Columbia Rockies, the largest and most notable being Mount Assiniboine Provincial Park , Mount Robson Provincial Park , Northern Rocky Mountains Provincial Park , Kwadacha Wilderness Provincial Park , Stone Mountain Provincial Park and Muncho Lake Provincial Park . Great-circle distance On

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