Inner North Coast Ranges

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The Inner North Coast Ranges occur along the east slope of the outer Northern California Coast Ranges. The term inner is a reference to the greater distances of the mountain ranges from the Pacific Ocean, compared to the outer ranges that are nearer to that ocean, and often larger.

California Coast Ranges mountain range

The Coast Ranges of California span 400 miles (640 km) from Del Norte or Humboldt County, California, south to Santa Barbara County. The other three coastal California mountain ranges are the Transverse Ranges, Peninsular Ranges and the Klamath Mountains.

Mountain range A geographic area containing several geologically related mountains

A mountain range or hill range is a series of mountains or hills ranged in a line and connected by high ground. A mountain system or mountain belt is a group of mountain ranges with similarity in form, structure, and alignment that have arisen from the same cause, usually an orogeny. Mountain ranges are formed by a variety of geological processes, but most of the significant ones on Earth are the result of plate tectonics. Mountain ranges are also found on many planetary mass objects in the Solar System and are likely a feature of most terrestrial planets.

Pacific Ocean Ocean between Asia and Australia in the west, the Americas in the east and Antarctica or the Southern Ocean in the south.

The Pacific Ocean is the largest and deepest of Earth's oceanic divisions. It extends from the Arctic Ocean in the north to the Southern Ocean in the south and is bounded by Asia and Australia in the west and the Americas in the east.

Contents

Geography

The inner ranges of mountains and hills run from near Anderson, California at south end of the High North Coast Ranges, southwards to west of the Russian River.

Hill Landform that extends above the surrounding terrain

A hill is a landform that extends above the surrounding terrain. It often has a distinct summit, although in areas with scarp/dip topography a hill may refer to a particular section of flat terrain without a massive summit.

Anderson, California City in California in the United States

Anderson is a city in Shasta County, California, United States, approximately 10 miles south of Redding. The population was 9,932 at the 2010 census, up from 9,022 at the 2000 census.

Russian River (California) river in California

The Russian River is a southward-flowing river that drains 1,485 sq mi (3,850 km2) of Sonoma and Mendocino counties in Northern California. With an annual average discharge of approximately 1,600,000 acre feet (2.0 km3), it is the second-largest river flowing through the nine-county Greater San Francisco Bay Area, with a mainstem 110 mi (180 km) long.

Ecology

Willis Linn Jepson was one of the first to describe the flora of the Inner North Coast Ranges. Jepson noted the presence of Yellow Pine (Pinus ponderosa ) and Sugar Pine (Pinus lambertiana ) species. [1]

Willis Linn Jepson U.S. botanist (1867–1946)

Willis Linn Jepson is known as California's most distinguished early botanist. He graduated from the University of California in 1889, and became a UC professor in botany, a botanical writer, and a conservationist.

Flora inventory of plant species in a given region

Flora is the plant life occurring in a particular region or time, generally the naturally occurring or indigenous—native plant life. The corresponding term for animal life is fauna. Flora, fauna and other forms of life such as fungi are collectively referred to as biota. Sometimes bacteria and fungi are also referred to as flora, as in the terms gut flora or skin flora.

<i>Pinus ponderosa</i> species of plant

Pinus ponderosa, commonly known as the ponderosa pine, bull pine, blackjack pine, or western yellow-pine, is a very large pine tree species of variable habitat native to the western United States and Canada. It is the most widely distributed pine species in North America.

See also

The Inner Coast Ranges are a long mountain range subsystem of the California Coast Ranges, running generally north/south in western California, from Santa Barbara County north to the Klamath Mountains system.

Related Research Articles

<i>Pinus sabiniana</i> species of plant

Pinus sabiniana, with the common names gray pine, foothill pine, and the more historically and internationally used digger pine, is a pine endemic to California in the United States. According to Conifers.org, "The terms 'foothills pine' or 'gray pine' are now officially preferred", however, other names also exist.

Western white pine species of plant, Western White Pine

Western white pine also called silver pine, and California mountain pine, in the family Pinaceae, is a species of pine that occurs in the mountains of the western United States and Canada, specifically the Sierra Nevada, the Cascade Range, the Coast Range, and the northern Rocky Mountains. The tree extends down to sea level in many areas, particularly in Oregon and Washington. It is the state tree of Idaho, and is sometimes known as the Idaho pine.

Klamath Mountains

The Klamath Mountains are a rugged and lightly populated mountain range in northwestern California and southwestern Oregon in the western United States. They have a varied geology, with substantial areas of serpentinite and marble, and a climate characterized by moderately cold winters with very heavy snowfall and warm, very dry summers with limited rainfall, especially in the south. As a consequence of the geology and soil types, the mountains harbor several endemic or near-endemic trees, forming one of the largest collections of conifers in the world. The mountains are also home to a diverse array of fish and animal species, including black bears, large cats, owls, eagles, and several species of Pacific salmon. Millions of acres in the mountains are managed by the United States Forest Service. The northernmost and largest sub-range of the Klamath Mountains are the Siskiyou Mountains.

<i>Pinus lambertiana</i> species of plant

Pinus lambertiana is the tallest and most massive pine tree, and has the longest cones of any conifer. The species name lambertiana was given by the British botanist David Douglas, who named the tree in honour of the English botanist, Aylmer Bourke Lambert. It is native to the mountains of the Pacific coast of North America, from Oregon through California to Baja California.

<i>Pinus jeffreyi</i> species of plant, Jeffrey Pine

Pinus jeffreyi also known as Jeffrey pine, Jeffrey's pine, yellow pine and black pine, is a North American pine tree. It is mainly found in California, but also in the westernmost part of Nevada, southwestern Oregon, and northern Baja California. It is named in honor of its botanist documenter John Jeffrey.

<i>Pinus flexilis</i> species of plant

Pinus flexilis, the limber pine, is a species of pine tree-the family Pinaceae that occurs in the mountains of the Western United States, Mexico, and Canada. It is also called Rocky Mountain white pine.

<i>Pinus contorta</i> species of plant, Lodgepole pine

Pinus contorta, with the common names lodgepole pine and shore pine, and also known as twisted pine, and contorta pine, is a common tree in western North America. It is common near the ocean shore and in dry montane forests to the subalpine, but is rare in lowland rain forests. Like all pines, it is an evergreen conifer.

Peninsular Ranges

The Peninsular Ranges are a group of mountain ranges that stretch 1,500 km (930 mi) from Southern California to the southern tip of the Baja California Peninsula; they are part of the North American Coast Ranges, which run along the Pacific Coast from Alaska to Mexico. Elevations range from 500 to 10,834 feet.

Coulter pine species of plant, Coulter Pine

The Coulter pine or big-cone pine, Pinus coulteri, is a native of the coastal mountains of Southern California and northern Baja California (Mexico). Isolated groves are found as far north as the San Francisco Bay Area in Mt. Diablo State Park and Black Diamond Mines Regional Preserve. The species is named after Thomas Coulter, an Irish botanist and physician.

Knobcone pine species of plant, Knobcone Pine

The knobcone pine, Pinus attenuata, is a tree that grows in mild climates on poor soils. It ranges from the mountains of southern Oregon to Baja California with the greatest concentration in northern California and the Oregon-California border.

Bishop pine species of plant, Bishop Pine

The bishop pine, Pinus muricata, is a pine with a very restricted range: mostly in California, including several offshore Channel Islands, and a few locations in Baja California, Mexico. It is always on or near the coast.

<i>Pinus cembroides</i> species of plant, Mexican pinyon

Pinus cembroides, also known as pinyon pine, Mexican pinyon, Mexican nut pine, and Mexican stone pine, is a pine in the pinyon pine group, native to western North America. It grows in areas with low levels of rainfall and its range extends southwards from Arizona, Texas and New Mexico in the United States into Mexico. It typically grows at altitudes between 1,600 and 2,400 metres. It is a small pine growing to about 20 m (66 ft) with a trunk diameter of up to 50 cm (20 in). The seeds are large and form part of the diet of the Mexican jay and Abert's squirrel. They are also collected for human consumption, being the most widely used pine nut in Mexico. This is a common pine with a wide range and the International Union for Conservation of Nature has rated its conservation status as being of "least concern".

Diablo Range mountain range in California, United States of America

The Diablo Range is a mountain range in the California Coast Ranges subdivision of the Pacific Coast Ranges. It is located in the eastern San Francisco Bay area south to the Salinas Valley area of northern California, the United States.

California mixed evergreen forest

California mixed evergreen forest is an ecoregion of the Temperate broadleaf and mixed forests biome. It is found in the mountain ranges of California and into southwestern Oregon.

Rocky Mountain Floristic Region

The Rocky Mountain Floristic Region, also known as the Rocky Mountain Floristic Province, is a floristic region within the Holarctic Kingdom in western North America delineated by Armen Takhtajan and Robert F. Thorne. The region extends from Kodiak Island in Alaska to the San Francisco Bay Area and Sierra Nevada in California. The Vancouverian Province comprises the coastal part of the region for its entire length, including the Pacific Coast Ranges, and the Rocky Mountain Province includes the Rocky Mountains and associated ranges. There are no endemic plant families in the region but many endemic genera and species.

North Central Rockies forest

The North Central Rockies forests is a temperate coniferous forest ecoregion of Canada and the United States. This region gets more rain on average than the South Central Rockies forests and is notable for containing the only inland populations of many species from the Pacific coast.

References

Line notes

  1. Willis Linn Jepson. 1909

Coordinates: 39°36′N122°48′W / 39.6°N 122.8°W / 39.6; -122.8

Geographic coordinate system Coordinate system

A geographic coordinate system is a coordinate system that enables every location on Earth to be specified by a set of numbers, letters or symbols. The coordinates are often chosen such that one of the numbers represents a vertical position and two or three of the numbers represent a horizontal position; alternatively, a geographic position may be expressed in a combined three-dimensional Cartesian vector. A common choice of coordinates is latitude, longitude and elevation. To specify a location on a plane requires a map projection.