Geology of the Rocky Mountains Japan, Indonesia and the Aleutians; others are fragments of oceanic crust obducted onto the continental margin while others represent small isolated mid-oceanic islands. Magma generated above the subducting slab rose into the North American continental crust about inland. Great arc-shaped volcanic mountain ranges, known as the Sierran Arc, grew as lava and ash spewed out of dozens of individual volcanoes. Beneath the surface, great masses of molten rock were injected and hardened in place. For 270 million years, the effects of plate collisions were focused very near the edge of the North American plate boundary, far to the west of
Geology of the United States It is this molten lithosphere that becomes the basalt lavas that gush onto the surface to form the Columbia River and Snake River Plain basalts. The track of this hot spot starts in the west and sweeps up to Yellowstone National Park. The steaming fumaroles and explosive geysers are ample evidence of a concentration of heat beneath the surface. The hot spot is stationary, but the North American plate is moving over it, creating a record of the rate and direction of plate motion. The Basin and Range Province includes much of western North America. In the United States, it