Chinese Wall (Montana)

The Chinese Wall is a large cuesta that lies along the crest of the Lewis and Clark Range in Bob Marshall Wilderness Area in northwest Montana. It stretches from Junction Mountain northward for 15 mi (24 km). It has an eastward-facing escarpment, 700 to 1,300 ft (210 to 400 m) high, carved by Pleistocene glaciers from westward tilted, sparsely fossiliferous, Middle Cambrian limestones. At the base of this shear wall, the limestones overlie Middle Cambrian shales and sandstones resting unconformably on late Precambrian sedimentary strata of the Belt Supergroup. The highest points on the wall are named separately as mountain peaks, including Junction, Haystack, Cliff, and Salt mountains. The Chinese Wall makes up part of the Continental Divide, meaning water on the different sides of the wall flow into either the Atlantic Ocean (through the Gulf of Mexico) or the Pacific Ocean.

This article is issued from Wikipedia. The text is licensed under Creative Commons - Attribution - Sharealike. Additional terms may apply for the media files.