

The Bald Mountain Batholith in the Elkhorn Mountains, for example, contains granitic rock as old as 155 million years. The ages of individual stitching plutons place constraints on when two terranes joined. Intruding these accreted terranes are granitic bodies, called “stitching plutons” because they cut across many terrane boundaries and appear to stitch them together. Similarly, from the late Jurassic through Middle Cretaceous Periods, the Blue Mountains terranes were added to the edge of North America through the process of subduction. While this observation may seem implausible, these fossils likely arrived in Oregon via large-scale plate movements. Some limestone within these terranes contains fossils of organisms that appear to have lived only in the ancient Tethys Ocean, which was near the site of today’s Mediterranean Sea. The Wallowa and Olds Ferry terranes originated as island arcs, the Baker Terrane as one or more subduction zone complexes, and the Izee Terrane as a marine basin that developed over the top of the older terranes. These fragments, called terranes, are bound on all sides by faults and have their own geologic histories distinct from adjacent terranes, which originated in a variety of oceanic settings during the late Paleozoic and early Mesozoic eras. The basement complex consists of several fragments of continental and oceanic lithosphere. From oldest to youngest, it consists of three main parts: the basement complex, which lies beneath everything else granitic intrusive rock and younger volcanic and sedimentary rock, which sits on top of the basement and intrusive rock (Figure 2). Glaciers scoured high elevation areas, leaving behind deposits of till in the Wallowa and Greenhorn Mountains. In some places, such as the north side of the Wallowa or Strawberry Mountains, faulting localized the uplift, visible today as abrupt and straight mountain fronts. The Blue Mountains landscape resulted from the erosion of bedrock as it was uplifted during about the last 15 million years. This rugged landscape and its geology have influenced nearly all aspects of human history in the region, from the homelands of Native peoples, to the migration routes of resettlers, to the location and types of natural resources. Elevations range from about 3,000 feet in the valley bottoms to higher than 9,800 feet at Sacajawea Peak in the Wallowa Mountains. The Blue Mountains also include the Greenhorn Range and the Aldrich, Strawberry, Elkhorn, and Wallowa Mountains (Figure 1). The precise boundaries of the Blues, as they are often called, are indistinct, but the western extent roughly coincides with the western edge of the Ochoco and Maury Mountains and the eastern edge with the Snake River in Hells Canyon. Slightly less than a sixth of Oregon's land area, the region occupies about 15,000 square miles.
Blue mountain state series#
Debuting March 29, 2005, Invasion Iowa ended its brief run, appropriately enough, on the first of April.The Blue Mountains, perhaps the most geologically diverse part of Oregon, consist of a series of mountain ranges, rolling uplands, and valleys in the northeastern part of the state and extending into southeastern Washington.

Blue mountain state movie#
As the people of Riverside open their hearts, their homes and their businesses to the visitors from Hollywood, not a single one of them suspects that the entire affair is a hoax: there is no film in production called "Invasion Iowa" - and except for Shatner, the movie personnel are all phonies! Of course, this being Spike TV, the cruel deception is played for all it is worth (and the worth is considerable!), climaxing with the episode in which we get to savor the reactions of the locals when they find out they've been hoodwinked. Imagine the surprise and delight of the Riverside citizenry when William Shatner himself shows up in town, ostensibly to film a big-budget sci-fi epic titled "Invasion Iowa," in which he is to star as "Colonel Shane Yeager." And not only Shatner, but a veritable army of filmmakers likewise descend upon Riverside, including Shatner's personal "spiritual advisor" Steve, short-tempered female studio executive Max, vainglorious leading lady Gryffyn, clumsy production assistant Herb, and Shatner's body double (and favorite nephew), Tiny.
Blue mountain state tv#
But how many of those people could tell that there really is a Riverside, Iowa, population 928? It is this cozy little farming community that serves as the locale of the four-part Spike TV reality series, Invasion Iowa. As anyone with even a nodding acquaintance with Star Trek can tell you, the (future) birthplace of Captain James T.
