Back to Forests of the Central Appalachians |
Feedback
In the vicinity of the New River crossing the uniform northeast/southwest trend and parallel orientation of the Virginia fold mountains are interrupted by a zone of greater structural and topographic complexity. In this zone, which extends southwest to Russell County, the ranges bend back on themselves in steeply plunging synclines and anticlines interspersed with less easily described structures. The oldest and generally lowest lying rocks are Cambrian and Ordovician limestones and dolomites which occupy the valleys and lower mountain slopes.Interbedded with these carbonates and extending to mid and upper elevations is a great variety of shales, siltstones, mudstones and sandstones of ages ranging from Cambrian to Devonian. Particularily striking topographically are the great promontories that frame the New River Valley in the vicinity of Pearsburg, Virginia.Butt Mountain to the northeast of the River, rises to 4200 feet (1281 meters) and Pearis Moutain juts up abruptly nearly as high immediately to the southeast.In truth Pearis Mountain is part of a continuous ridge which bends back on itself twice on the northwest before it becomes Wolf Creek Mountain and again to the southeast where it emerges first as Sugar Run Mountain and beyond this as Brushy Mountain. Far from being exhausted by these convolutions, there is still rock enough to form the low plateau of Flat Top Mountain between these sinuous ridges. The mountain complex just described is roughly synclinal so the steepest slopes occur on the outside of the structure, facing the New River lowlands. However where the zone extends southwestward through the Kimberling Creek drainage- and the site of the Kimberling Creek Wilderness- it inverts its flexure and becomes roughly anticlinal.An unusual if not unique topographic feature to the southwest of Kimberling Creek is Burkes Garden, a near oval agricultural valley eight miles (13 km) in length and at an elevation of 3500 feet (1050 meters) asl.Surrounded by Garden Mountain on three sides, the Valley's southwest edge is formed by Beartown Mountain (from the county in which it occurs it is known as "Tazewell Beartown"), which at 4700 feet (1434 meters), is one of the loftiest elevations in Virginia and the site of the remote Beartown Wilderness of the Jefferson National Forest. As a consequence of its elevation and location at the base of Beartown Mountain and other high ridges, Burkes Garden has a growing season of only 135 days, one of the shortest in Virginia. Beartown Mountain has one of the State's few Red Spruce forests, this species here being associated with Northern Red Oak as well as Yellow Birch, a complement of boreal species and such Appalachian endemics as Long-stalked Holly (Nemopanthus or Ilex collina) and Beaked Dodder (Cuscuta rostrata). Still farther southwest, where four counties, including Russell, join,the structure has again become synclinal. On a high bend of resistant Silurian sandstone is the second Beartown Mountain ('Russell Beartown'),which also reaches nearly 4700 feet in elevation and has the southernmost occurence of Red Spruce in the Valley and Ridge.Like Tazewell Beartown, it is the site of a number of rare and disjunct species including Glade Spurge (Euphorbia purpurea) which otherwise flourishes in the high Alleghenies of West Virginia,is found in a few locations in the Blue Ridge,and curiously, not far away in the Clinch River Gorge at less than 2000 feet (610 meters) asl. This gorge, which is developed in Ordovician limestone and dolomite, is remarkable for its plant communities, which have many rarities and species far south of their normal ranges (Ogle, 1989). It seems likely that favorable alkaline substrates here may have been a factor in their range extentions. Better than many parts of the Appalachians this zone illustrates the potential for still to be discovered and interpreted diversity of its forests and other natural communities. The oak forests that dominate the higher sandstone ridges have best survived the onslaught of Eurosettlement and are best known of all forest types. Many occur on public lands. However, remnants of many other, far richer forest types, with a variety of aspects, and almost all on private lands, occur in valley enclaves or on lower mountain slopes. It is these that deserve our closest attention because they are critical to the restoration of a fully functional regional ecologic mosaic. An example from Pearis Mountain follows. Reference Ogle, Douglas W. 1989, Castanea 54, (2), 105-110
Land of Bowed Mountains
September,1999