AnswersDriveActive Volcano Discovered Under the Great Smoky Mountains. A year-long geologic study conducted by the National Park Service has determined that there is an active volcano in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park.
What is the lowest point in Tennessee?
The highest point in Tennessee is Clingman's Dome at 6,643 feet above sea level. The lowest point in Tennessee is 178 feet at the Mississippi River. The Mean Elevation of the state of Tennessee is 900 feet above sea level.
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What kind of rock is in the Smoky Mountains?
Cambrian sedimentary rocks are found among the outer reaches of the Foothills to the northwest and in limestone coves such as Cades Cove. The Precambrian gneiss and schists—the oldest rocks in the Smokies—formed over a billion years ago from the accumulation of marine sediments and igneous rock in a primordial ocean.
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How old is the Blue Ridge Mountains?
The Blue Ridge, part of the Appalachian range, was created by the uplifting of the Earth's tectonic plates 1.1 billion to 250 million years ago. At over 1 billion years of age, the Blue Ridge Mountains are among the oldest in the world, second only to South Africa's Barberton greenstone belt.
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Why are the Smoky Mountains so foggy?
Name Origin. Named for the blue fog or mist that hangs over the mountains and in the valleys, the Smokies were originally settled by the Cherokee. Shaconage, or “place of the blue smoke,” is what they called this range of the Appalachians.
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Are there any active volcanoes in North Carolina?
These eruptions continued for at least 220 million years and deposited some 3,000 meters of volcanic and sedimentary rock. There are no known active volcanoes in North Carolina today despite some geologic instability on the coast. References: Fred Beyer, North Carolina, the Years before Man: A Geologic History (1991).
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How did the Great Smoky Mountains form?
Most of the rocks in Great Smoky Mountains National Park are sedimentary and were formed by accumulations of clay, silt, sand, gravel, and minor amounts of calcium carbonate in flat-lying layers. The oldest sedimentary rocks were formed during the Proterozoic Era some 800-545 million years ago.
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How did the Great Smoky Mountains National Park get its name?
How did the Great Smoky Mountains National Park get its name? The Smokies are named for the blue mist that always seems to hover around the peaks and valleys. The Cherokee called them shaconage, (shah-con-ah-jey) or “place of the blue smoke”.
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Where is the nearest volcano to me?
"There are about 169 volcanoes in the United States that scientists consider active. Most of these are located in Alaska, where eruptions occur virtually every year. Others are located throughout the west and in Hawaii (see our Volcano Activity Map for their locations).
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When did the Great Smoky Mountains became a national park?
Franklin D. Roosevelt dedicated the Great Smoky Mountains National Park on September 2, 1940, "for the permanent enjoyment of the people." Becoming a national park was not easy for the Great Smokies.
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How old is the Appalachian Mountains?
Strong evidence that these rocks were deformed during plate collision. The birth of the Appalachian ranges, some 480 million years ago, marks the first of several mountain building plate collisions that culminated in the construction of the supercontinent Pangea with the Appalachians near the center.
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How old is the Rocky Mountains?
The rocky cores of the mountain ranges are, in most places, formed of pieces of continental crust that are over one billion years old. In the south, an older mountain range was formed 300 million years ago, then eroded away. The rocks of that older range were reformed into the Rocky Mountains.
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When was the Great Smoky Mountains National Park founded?
On June 15, 1934, Great Smoky Mountains National Park was officially established, preserving the land for generations to come.
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What state is the Great Smoky Mountains National Park?
Ridge upon ridge of forest straddles the border between North Carolina and Tennessee in Great Smoky Mountains National Park.
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What state is the Great Smoky Mountains National Park located in?
The Great Smoky Mountains National Park – located just beyond the southernmost end of the Blue Ridge Parkway in the states of North Carolina and Tennessee – encompasses 800 square miles of which 95 percent are forested.
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How big is the Great Smoky Mountains National Park?
The Great Smoky Mountains National Park covers around 244,000 acres of Tennessee and 276,000 acres of North Carolina. This totals 520,000 acres, which equates to over 800 square miles.
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What is the largest national park?
The largest national park is Wrangell–St. Elias in Alaska: at over 8 million acres (32,375 km2), it is larger than each of the nine smallest states. The next three largest parks are also in Alaska.
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What city is the Great Smoky Mountains National Park in?
Great Smoky is in the eastern part of the United States on the Tennessee-North Carolina border. Gatlinburg, TN is the most popular gateway town. Great Smoky Mountains National Park is located in the United States on the border of Tennessee and North Carolina.
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What states are in the Appalachian Mountains?
The term is often used more restrictively to refer to regions in the central and southern Appalachian Mountains, usually including areas in the states of Kentucky, Tennessee, Virginia, Maryland, West Virginia, and North Carolina, as well as sometimes extending as far south as northern Alabama, Georgia and western South