Uinta Mountains
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Kings Peak and Henry 's Fork Basin show the typical landform in the Uinta Mountains
The Uinta Mountains [ ju ː ɪntə maʊntənz ] are a mountain range of the Rocky Mountains in northeastern Utah ( United States). They run about 160 kilometers east of Salt Lake City in an unusual for this mountain east-west direction and reach peak levels of about 3700-4100 m. The highest elevation is Kings Peak, at the same time is the highest elevation in the state of Utah with 4124 m height.
Geology
The rock in the core of the Uinta Mountains comes from the Neoproterozoic and is about 800-700 million years old and consists mainly of quartzite, shale and slate. These rock layers form the bulk of the Uinta Mountains and are 4 to 7.3 kilometers thick. Many of the peaks are surrounded by cliffs that rise to broad and flat surfaces. The flanks of the running east -west direction chain Paleozoic and Mesozoic strata contain sequences that range from Cambrian to Cretaceous. They were tilted during the unfolding of the mountain range.
The folding of the chain dates from the time of lara mix orogeny about 70-50 million years ago, when compressive stresses caused turmoil both on the north side and the south side of the present-day mountain chain and the rock layers laid in folds. The orientation of the Uinta Mountains in east-west direction is an exception that may be caused by a change in the folding behavior and rotation of the Colorado Plateau in comparison to most other mountain ranges of the northern Rocky Mountains.
The Uinta Mountains were largely covered by ice during the last ice age. Most of the broad valleys of the north and south contain long glacier.
Are wide valleys through which about 500 small lakes are distributed between the peaks and ridgelines. One of the most popular is because of the good fishing grounds and the beautiful scenery of Mirror Lake.
Hydrology
The Uintas are mainly so that the precipitates are discharged into the Pacific Ocean to the catchment area of the Colorado River. From north and south flow the springing in the mountains rivers in the later opening into the Colorado Green River, which flows east in a tight arc around the chain.
Only the western end of the mountain drains into the Great Salt Lake and thus in the endorheic Great Basin. On the northwest side of the Uinta Mountains to the Bear River, the largest tributary of the spring from the Great Salt Lake and the Weber River. The Provo River, the largest tributary of the Utah Lake, rises on the southwest side of the mountain range. The Utah Lake itself is drained via the Jordan River in the Great Salt Lake, which thus gets most of its water from the Uinta Mountains.
Management
The mountain is almost wholly owned by the Federal Government of the United States. The northern half of the mountain range is part of the Wasatch - Cache National Forest, south of the Ashley National Forest. Both national forests are under the administration of the U.S. Forest Service and are used extensively forested. The Forest Service also manages the location in the heart of the mountains High Uintas Wilderness Area ( established in 1984, 1850 km ²), which is as Wilderness Area, the strictest class of protected natural areas in the United States, reported. The forests consist mainly of coastal pines and cliffs -fir.
On the southern edge of the Uinta Mountains will last into the Uintah and Ouray Indian Reservation, an Indian reservation of the Ute Indians.