Mount Shasta – southern Cascade Range, R. Forest
Orogen/Orogenesis:
The building of mountains by the forces of plate tectonics – slowly over geologic time as an accumulation of crustal deformation
Driven by the internal heat of the Earth, motions of lithospheric plates produce changes in crustal thickness and structure that result in vertical motion of the topographic surface
Mountain building event caused by plate collisions
Orogen (a mountain range) is the product of, and formed by, orogenesis – the tectonic processes associated with active plate margins
(Definition references are listed at the bottom of the Geomorphology Word of the Day home page)
Where in California:
Prehistoric and current orogenic cycles have built the majority of California’s active and emergent landscape. Orogens are seen today most dramatically in the Klamath Mountains, the Cascades, the Sierra Nevada, the Peninsular Range, the Transverse Range, and the Coast Ranges
