California Coast Mountains
As California Coast Ranges ( engl. California Coast Ranges ), the mountain ranges along the Pacific coast of the State of California referred to, based on a length of about 600 kilometers between the shore and the California longitudinal valley extend. They are part of a long mountain range on the Pacific coast that extends from Mexico to Alaska .
The California Coast Mountains separate the California Long Valley from the coast. This does not include the Klamath Mountains and Siskiyou Mountains in the north, whose transition zone to the Cascade Range delimits the longitudinal valley, as well as the Transverse Ranges with the Tehachapi Mountains , which form the southern boundary of the longitudinal valley, and all the mountain ranges of southern California.
They form one of the eleven geomorphological provinces of California.
The California Coast Mountains consist of the two subsystems Inner Coast Mountains and Outer Coast Mountains , which in turn are also subdivided.
geology
The coastal mountains essentially consist of the Franciscan complex , a tectonic mélange . It was created by plate tectonic processes when the Juan de Fuca plate or its section of the sea floor, known as the Gorda plate, submerged under the North American plate ( subduction ) and fragments were pushed off and thrown onto the coast plate .
Location and names
The California Coast Mountains are divided into the Northern Coast Ranges and the Southern Coast Ranges by the San Francisco Bay .
The Northern Coast Ranges include the Mendocino Range and Mayacamas Mountains .
The Mendocino Range lies west on the Pacific Ocean, the Mayacamas Mountains form the eastern flank of the Central Valley . They are separated by the river valleys of the Eel River in the north and the Russian River in the south. Other small mountain ranges are the King Range in the northwest and the Vaca Range in the southeast.
The Southern Coast Ranges include:
