Short Hill Mountain

Last updated
Short Hill Mountain
ShortHill C&O.JPG
Short Hill Mountain as seen from across the Potomac River along the C&O Canal
Highest point
Elevation 1,442 ft (440 m)
Prominence 642 ft (196 m)
Coordinates 39°15′N77°43′W / 39.25°N 77.71°W / 39.25; -77.71 [1]
Geography
USA Virginia relief location map.svg
Red triangle with thick white border.svg
Short Hill Mountain
Location of Short Hill Mountain in Virginia
Location Loudoun County, Virginia, U.S.
Parent range Blue Ridge Mountains
Appalachian Mountains
Topo map USGS Purcellville

Short Hill Mountain is a mountain ridge of the Blue Ridge Mountains in northwest Loudoun County, Virginia.

Contents

Geography

Short Hill rises sharply from the Piedmont countryside of the Loudoun Valley, northwest of Purcellville. It is a low-lying ridge, barely over 400 feet (120 m) in elevation. The mountain ridge extends northeast for approximately 3 miles (4.8 km) before descending to the Hillsboro Gap, through which the North Fork of Catoctin Creek flows and the town of Hillsboro is located. North of the gap, the ridge quickly achieves heights of greater than 600 feet (180 m), and continues for 12 miles (19 km), gradually gaining elevation, before dropping precipitously to the Potomac River.

The portion of the mountain south of Hillsboro Gap is known as Signal Mountain for the Union Army signaling station located on its 1,020 feet (310 m) summit during the American Civil War. North of the Potomac, the ridge continues as South Mountain in Maryland and Pennsylvania.

Short Hill is about 4 miles (6.4 km) east of the crest of the Blue Ridge Mountain, which forms the western border of Loudoun County, and the valley in between the mountains is known as Between the Hills and includes the villages of Loudoun Heights and Neersville. To the east of the mountain is the Catoctin Valley.

A small portion of Short Hill, along its northwestern slope and adjoining the Potomac, is owned by the National Park Service to preserve downriver views for Harpers Ferry National Historical Park. The rest of the mountain is in private hands and is by and large undeveloped. The only road crossing of the mountain is Virginia State Route 9 at Hillsboro.

Short Hill as seen from Elk Ridge in Maryland Short Hill Mt.jpg
Short Hill as seen from Elk Ridge in Maryland

Geology

The rocks underlying Short Hill are of the late Proterozoic and early Paleozoic eras. The formation consists primarily of metabasalt greenstone deposited during the early Catoctin Formation and interspersed with metasedimentary phyllite, schist and breccia, which were deposited later. The rocks were originally deposited contiguous with those of the Blue Ridge Mountains and uplifted together during the Grenville Orogeny. The two ridges were later separated in the late Paleozoic era by movement along the Short Hill Fault, which runs along the western edge of the mountain. During the Alleghenian Orogeny the rocks were pushed westward to their present location and uplifted once more. [2]

Project Office

Short Hill Mountain north of Hillsboro is home to one of several AT&T Corporation Project Offices, underground facilities constructed in the 1960s to provide redundant communications services. The Short Hill facility was renovated in the late 2010s and remains active. [3]

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Hillsboro, Loudoun County, Virginia</span> Town in Virginia

Hillsboro is a rural town in Loudoun County, Virginia, United States. The population was 80 at the 2010 census and an estimated 169 as of 2019.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Geology of the Appalachians</span> Geologic description of the Appalachian Mountains

The geology of the Appalachians dates back more than 1.1 billion years to the Mesoproterozoic era when two continental cratons collided to form the supercontinent Rodinia, 500 million years prior to the later development of the range during the formation of the supercontinent Pangea. The rocks exposed in today's Appalachian Mountains reveal elongate belts of folded and thrust faulted marine sedimentary rocks, volcanic rocks and slivers of ancient ocean floor – strong evidence that these rocks were deformed during plate collision. The birth of the Appalachian ranges marks the first of several mountain building plate collisions that culminated in the construction of the supercontinent Pangea with the Appalachians and neighboring Anti-Atlas mountains near the center. These mountain ranges likely once reached elevations similar to those of the Alps and the Rocky Mountains before they were eroded.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Geology of the Grand Teton area</span>

The geology of the Grand Teton area consists of some of the oldest rocks and one of the youngest mountain ranges in North America. The Teton Range, partly located in Grand Teton National Park, started to grow some 9 million years ago. An older feature, Jackson Hole, is a basin that sits aside the range.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Catoctin Mountain</span> Mountain ridge in the United States

Catoctin Mountain, along with the geologically associated Bull Run Mountains, forms the easternmost mountain ridge of the Blue Ridge Mountains, which are in turn a part of the Appalachian Mountains range. The ridge runs northeast–southwest for about 50 miles (80 km) departing from South Mountain near Emmitsburg, Maryland, and running south past Leesburg, Virginia, where it disappears into the Piedmont in a series of low-lying hills near New Baltimore, Virginia. The ridge forms the eastern rampart of the Loudoun and Middletown valleys.

The Bull Run Mountains are a mountain range of the Blue Ridge Mountains in northern Virginia in the United States. Located approximately 20 miles (32 km) east of the main chain, across the Loudoun Valley. The Bull Run Mountains, together with Catoctin Mountain in Virginia and Maryland, make up the easternmost front of the Blue Ridge.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Rockfish Gap</span>

Rockfish Gap is a wind gap located in the Blue Ridge Mountains between Charlottesville and Waynesboro, Virginia, United States, through Afton Mountain, which is frequently used to refer to the gap.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Catoctin Creek (Virginia)</span> River in Virginia, United States

Catoctin Creek is a 14.1-mile-long (22.7 km) tributary of the Potomac River in Loudoun County, Virginia, with a watershed of 59,000 acres (240 km2). Agricultural lands make up 67 percent and forests 30 percent of Catoctin Creek's watershed. It is the main drainage system for the northern Loudoun Valley, including all of the Catoctin Valley.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Blue Ridge Mountain</span>

Blue Ridge Mountain, also known as Blue Mountain, is the colloquial name of the westernmost ridge of the Blue Ridge Mountains in northern Virginia and the Eastern Panhandle of West Virginia. The Appalachian Trail traverses the entire length of the mountain along its western slope and crest.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Environment of West Virginia</span>

The Environment of West Virginia encompasses terrain and ecosystems ranging from plateaus to mountains. Most of West Virginia lies within the Appalachian mixed mesophytic forests ecoregion, while the higher elevations along the eastern border and in the panhandle lie within the Appalachian-Blue Ridge forests.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Loudoun Valley</span> Valley in northern Virginia

The Loudoun Valley is a small, but historically significant valley in the Blue Ridge Mountains located in Loudoun County in Northern Virginia in the United States.

Between the Hills is a small valley in northwest Loudoun County, Virginia, distinct from, but associated with, the greater Loudoun Valley.

Loudoun County, Virginia, was destined to be an area of significant military activity during the American Civil War. Located on Virginia's northern frontier, the Potomac River, Loudoun County became a borderland after Virginia's secession from the Union in early 1861. Loudoun County's numerous Potomac bridges, ferries and fords made it an ideal location for the Union and Confederate armies to cross into and out of Virginia. Likewise, the county's several gaps in the Blue Ridge Mountains that connected the Piedmont to the Shenandoah Valley and Winchester were of considerable strategic importance. The opposing armies would traverse the county several times throughout the war leading to several small battles, most notably the Battle of Ball's Bluff.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">South Mountain (Maryland and Pennsylvania)</span> Mountain in Maryland and Pennsylvania, United States

South Mountain is the northern extension of the Blue Ridge Mountain range in Maryland and Pennsylvania. From the Potomac River near Knoxville, Maryland in the south to Dillsburg, Pennsylvania in York County, Pennsylvania in the north, the 70-mile-long (110 km) range separates the Hagerstown and Cumberland valleys from the Piedmont regions of the two states.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Virginia State Route 9</span> State highway in Loudoun County, Virginia, US

Virginia State Route 9 is a primary state highway in the U.S. state of Virginia. Known as Charles Town Pike, the state highway runs 13.08 miles (21.05 km) from the West Virginia state line near Mechanicsville, where the highway continues west as West Virginia Route 9, east to SR 7 and SR 7 Business in Paeonian Springs. SR 9 is the main east–west highway of northwestern Loudoun County, connecting Leesburg with Hillsboro and the West Virginia cities of Charles Town and Martinsburg. As a result, the state highway and its West Virginia continuation are a major, overburdened commuter route between the Eastern Panhandle of West Virginia and Washington, D.C.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Geology of Pennsylvania</span> Overview of the geology of the U.S. state of Pennsylvania

The Geology of Pennsylvania consists of six distinct physiographic provinces, three of which are subdivided into different sections. Each province has its own economic advantages and geologic hazards and plays an important role in shaping everyday life in the state. From the southeast corner to the northwest corner of the state, the include: the Atlantic Plain Province province, the Piedmont Province, the New England Province, the Ridge and Valley Province, the Appalachain Province, and the Central Lowlands Province.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Geology of West Virginia</span>

West Virginia's geologic history stretches back into the Precambrian, and includes several periods of mountain building and erosion. At times, much of what is now West Virginia was covered by swamps, marshlands, and shallow seas, accounting for the wide variety of sedimentary rocks found in the state, as well as its wealth of coal and natural gas deposits. West Virginia has had no active volcanism for hundreds of millions of years, and does not experience large earthquakes, although smaller tremors are associated with the Rome Trough, which passes through the western part of the state.

Humpback Rocks is a massive greenstone outcropping near the peak of Humpback Mountain in the Blue Ridge Mountains of Augusta County and Nelson County, Virginia, United States, with a summit elevation of 3,080 feet (940 m). The rock formation is so named for the visual effect of a "hump" it creates on the western face of the mountain.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Geology of Virginia</span>

The geology of Virginia began to form 1.8 billion years ago and potentially even earlier. The oldest rocks in the state were metamorphosed during the Grenville orogeny, a mountain building event beginning 1.2 billion years ago in the Proterozoic, which obscured older rocks. Throughout the Proterozoic and Paleozoic, Virginia experienced igneous intrusions, carbonate and sandstone deposition, and a series of other mountain building events which defined the terrain of the inland parts of the state. The closing of the Iapetus Ocean, to form the supercontinent Pangaea added additional small landmasses, some of which are now hidden beneath thick Atlantic Coastal Plain sediments. The region subsequently experienced the rifting open of the Atlantic Ocean in the Mesozoic, the development of the Coastal Plain, isolated volcanism and a series of marine transgressions that flooded much of the area. Virginia has extensive coal, deposits of oil and natural gas, as well as deposits of other minerals and metals, including vermiculite, kyanite and uranium.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Matchless Mountain (Colorado)</span> Mountain in the American state of Colorado

Matchless Mountain is a high mountain summit in the Elk Mountains range of the Rocky Mountains of North America. The 12,389-foot (3,776 m) mountain is located in Gunnison National Forest, 18.3 miles (29.4 km) east-southeast of the Town of Crested Butte in Gunnison County, Colorado, United States.

References

  1. "Short Hill Mountain". Geographic Names Information System . United States Geological Survey, United States Department of the Interior . Retrieved 2009-01-30.
  2. USGS Survey Bulletin 2123
  3. "What's up there? There's more than meets the eye to Short Hill Mountain".