Talk:Linn Cove Viaduct

the completion date is incorrect. It was not completed to road traffic in 1983. I moved to NC in Aug, 1984 and visited the mountains in NC for the first time sometime after that. I walked on the Viaduct b/c it was not finished and not opened to road traffic. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Tarcanes92 (talk • contribs) 17:20, 22 September 2012 (UTC)

Good source
Arcadia's Building the Blue Ridge Parkway (ISBN 0738552879) has a chapter devoted to the viaduct. Unfortunately I don't own a copy at this time, so for now the source I'll use will be a newspaper article on the 25th anniversary of the ribbon cutting. Mapsax (talk) 08:23, 9 October 2012 (UTC)

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"Most ancient mountain"
I added a citation needed tag to the "most rugged" and "most ancient" mountain in North America claims. Both are, in my opinion, problematic to claim without further explanation. Here's a copy of the text I wrote in the "reason" field for the CT tag (pedantry warning):

Aside from the lack of citation for a superlative claim, finding the age of a single, "discrete" mountain (as opposed to the more typical practice of dating the orogeny of a whole mountain range) is both ontologically and practically questionable. What are the boundaries of a single mountain as opposed to that of its neighbors? What if the topography has changed drastically in that mountain's history (erosion) such that it was not always a single separate peak? How are we proving that this mountain is older than its neighbors? These may be easier questions to answer for certain types of mountains (e.g. volcanic), but the Appalachian orogenies involve regional uplift and accretion from tectonic forces. The ancient mountain whose roots contained modern-day Grandfather mountain (and possibly others) arose alongside a whole range of mountains.

A related question to ask to elucidate my point might be- could you pick out one mountain from the Himalayan range and definitively call it the oldest? How about 300 million years from now when they have eroded into a different set of peaks and valleys, where previously one long ridge may have eroded into several distinct peaks. Could you definitively pick one mountain then and call it the oldest?

One may be able to say "this mountain contains the oldest rocks" with some degree of accuracy, however this again calls into question the boundaries of each individual mountain in all three dimensions. And certainly just because out of two mountains, one contains older basement rocks does not mean one mountain formed before the other. Regional uplift, and subsequent faulting and folding, will affect rocks of all ages and place them next to other rocks of various ages. We cannot confuse the orogenic forces (and their rough date of occurence) with the age of the rocks they are acting upon. And if one claims one mountain the "most ancient" I believe most readers would infer this to mean "first formed."

The "most rugged" claim is problematic in a more straight-forward way. Obviously is it non-arbitrary to ask how one ranks mountains by their ruggedness. If it even is done scientifically it needs a citation.

I believe a more accurate sentence for this section would be something like "Towering almost 6,000 feet (1,800 m), this Blue Ridge mountain has been noted for its ruggedness (citation) and falls within the most ancient range of mountains in North America (citation)." 75.177.178.202 (talk) 16:27, 26 April 2024 (UTC)


 * I posted this earlier while not logged into my account. The "citation needed" tag has been edited to simply refer back to this topic instead of containing a chunk of it. Graffoj (talk) 21:38, 26 April 2024 (UTC)