DEFINITION OF MOUNT WHITNEY, CALIFORNIA

The tallest mountain in the lower 48 states is Mount Whitney, California, reaching

14,491 feet (4,417 m) in the Sierra Nevada mountain ranges.

The mountain is located at the eastern border of Sequoia

National Park and is surrounded by many peaks reaching

over 12,000 feet (3,650 m). Mount Whitney is thought to be

the most frequently climbed peak in the United States.

The Sierra Nevada are part of a large continental margin

plutonic belt including granites, granodiorites, diorites, and

other rocks, intruded from Late Jurassic through Cretaceous

above a long-lasting convergent margin and subduction zone.

This tectonism and plutonism probably cause some uplift of

the Sierra Nevada. However, much of the topography is a

result of relatively recent uplift in the past 3–4 million years,

and the eastern margin of the Sierra Nevada is bounded by a

series of normal faults that mark the transition into the Basin

and Range Province. The western margin of the Sierra is

more gently inclined and slopes into the Great Valley of California.

The precise cause for the uplift of the Sierra Nevada is

not certain, but many geologists relate the initial uplift to

flat-slab subduction during the latest Cretaceous to Eocene

Laramide Orogeny. Continued uplift could be related to

strike-slip motions, isostatic compensation of crust with a

thick light root, or thermal effects of lithospheric thinning.

See also CONVERGENT PLATE MARGIN PROCESSES.

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