Talk:Uwharrie Mountains

Some points...
I'm not certain, but a graduate geologist friend once told me the claim that the Uwharries are the oldest mountain range in North America has not been totally accepted by experts. But that was several years ago (1990s) when she told me.

I also do not believe the area was ever totally cleared - a lot of it is unsuitable for farming, and would be diffcult for timber operations. Some trivia: I've heard the area was a minor haven for deserters in the Civil War, also possibly runaway slaves, and was never heavily populated.

Today the area is used as a training ground for the US Army's Special Forces ("Exercize Robin Sage", part of the Green Beret's qualification course). You can still find the spoil from prospecting that went on back in the 1800s... Engr105th 19:12, 10 June 2007 (UTC)

Yeah, that oldest mountain range claim is most likely bogus. The rocks comprising the range are pretty old, but the mountains themselves were only uplifted fairly recently in geological terms. I'll see if I can relocate some of the sources I've read on the subject. 152.7.35.136 20:01, 17 October 2007 (UTC)

Not Oldest Mountani Range in NA
The Uwharrie Mtns are believed to be around 560 million years old. While the Procupine Mtns in Michigan are estimated around 2 billion years old. ModestMouse2 (Talk) 19:56, 2 June 2008 (UTC)

It's time to set the record straight on this. The Uwharries are by no means anywhere near the oldest mountain range in North America, having in fact only been "formed" between 18 and 4 million years ago. The notion that the Uwharries where formed 500 million years ago is junk science. People repeat it because it sounds cool. The real story is that the rocks that make up the Uwharries were associated with a volcanic island arc that collided with the east coast half a billion years ago (I'm guessing this has something to do with the Taconic Orogeny), creating a coastal mountain range. Other terranes accreted to the east coast, also forming mountain ranges, and eventually Africa collided with North America to form the Appalachian Mountains over the entirety of present day North Carolina. Anyway, Pangaea rifted apart, and by the Cretaceous period North Carolina was almost completely flat. Tens of millions of years ago, when North Carolina uplifted again, that flat plain became a plateau. Erosion started in at once, eventually forming what we now know as the Piedmont (which is a dissected plateau). More resistant rock remained in place while softer rock eroded. That's why features like Pilot Mountain exist. The largest outcropping of resistant rock became the Uwharries. So, does the fact that the volcanic island arc accreted to the continent 500 million years ago mean the mountain range is 500 years old even though it didn't exist until less than 20 million years ago? Can we really say that the Uwharries are a bona fide continuation of the original coastal range when the original range was absorbed into several other ranges, the whole of which was completely worn down long before the present day Uwharries even began to form. Part of the original volcanic rock does indeed form the backbone of the Uwharries, but that's not enough to imply what this article implies. The implication here is that the Uwharries formed 500 million years ago, we completely ignore the other terranes and say that uplift is the reason the Uwharries are inland now, imply the Uwharries have been a continual entity for 500 million years, and have just now worn down to 1,000 foot peaks (to think it would take that long for a range to wear down is ludicrous anyway).

65.40.91.17 (talk) 00:50, 4 July 2008 (UTC)

Talk Like a Tarheel
"Talk Like a Tarheel" is a dead link. The new URL should be https://library.unc.edu/wilson/ncc/talk-like-a-tar-heel/ but I couldn't figure out how to edit it.