• gigastasio@sh.itjust.works
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      2 months ago

      To the extent that a portion of the mountain chain that formed the Appalachian Mountains is in Europe. The Appalachians were a part of the Central Pangean mountain system, which makes them older than the Atlantic Ocean.

      They’ve seen some shit.

        • rockerface🇺🇦@lemmy.cafe
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          2 months ago

          Sharks are older than the North Star. Not as in Polaris wasn’t pointing north yet when the sharks evolved, but as in it hadn’t formed yet.

      • Lost_My_Mind@lemmy.world
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        2 months ago

        And through it all, the mountains can all agree…trump is the biggest piece of shit they’ve ever heard of.

      • wonderingwanderer@sopuli.xyz
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        2 months ago

        That’s kind of awesome to think about.

        I’m picturing myself on Pangea. The mountains in front of me are taller than the Himalayas today. These are the Appalachians. Oh no, a dinosaur! Look out, duck! Huh, that’s not a duck that’s a QUETZALCOATLUS! Everybody run! How can we outrun a QUETZALCOATLUS?!?!?! AAAHHHHHH.

        Isn’t it beautiful?

        • DoubleDongle@lemmy.world
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          2 months ago

          Wikipedia says they date back 480 million years, during the Ordovician period. I think the atmosphere would have been pretty breathable, but plants wouldn’t conquer the land in a serious way for at least another 60 million years or so, with bugs following them. Nothing saw those mountains. If you time-traveled to the Pangean mountains, you would be the only being to ever observe them in their formative years. Eons would pass before the first plant set root at their feet. The sterile and desolate emptiness would be beyond human experience.

          • Zwiebel@feddit.org
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            2 months ago

            The couple of people who’ve been on the moon have seen that kind of emptiness

          • wonderingwanderer@sopuli.xyz
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            2 months ago

            but plants wouldn’t conquer the land in a serious way for at least another 60 million years or so
            …
            Eons would pass before the first plant set root at their feet.

            Pretty sure the mountains will still be there. Spoiler alert. I started at the end of the book.

            you would be the only being to ever observe them in their formative years.
            …
            The sterile and desolate emptiness would be beyond human experience.

            That’s badass though. Except that we might be returning to that sterile and desolate emptiness here shortly.

            Also, don’t forget that fungi, algae, and lichen colonized dry land before the plants arrived, paving the way for them by eating rocks and pooping dirt.

        • sudoshakes@reddthat.com
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          2 months ago

          Older than trees.

          Older than bones.

          Drones from land masses that don’t exist anymore.

          There is rock in the Appalachian mountains without coal seams, because many formed in places before the land biomass that made coal and oil existed.

          They contain layers of fossils from ancient whales back to small crustaceans.

          480 million years ago trilobites were being heft out of the sea by the Appalachians.

          The Appalachians existed for 20 million years before bearing witness to a million year long meteor shower from the L-chondrite debris that gave the earth temporary rings.

          • Tja@programming.dev
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            2 months ago

            This is th e best comment I’ve read on lemmy for a long time. Fascinating info and well written. Thanks for taking the time.

    • Fmstrat@lemmy.world
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      2 months ago

      And prominence of many is still impressive. And there’s Mount Washington, where it’s so crazy you can’t predict the weather 15 minutes out.

  • captainlezbian@lemmy.world
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    2 months ago

    I love my Cascades and the Rockies are majestic and impressive, but the Appalachians are basically the wizened old crones of mountains. They’re weird and mysterious. They’re full of forests and traditions and stories. They demand respect.

    Also, listen, folks from the eastern Midwest are barely used to hills then having to drive through them is scary.

    • Lumelore (She/her)@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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      2 months ago

      I’m in Minnesota and I get super carsick just driving in Wisconsin. I’ve gone up the mountain on Orcas island in Washington and it was very beautiful but I actually thought I was gonna hurl. It feels just like those pirate ship carnival rides. I really don’t know how people ride those without getting sick.

      However the small mountains (more like big hills tbh) along the north shore of Lake Superior are fine and don’t make sick at all for some reason.

    • Bluefalcon@discuss.tchncs.de
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      2 months ago

      Don’t forget, they are older and LOCATED IN THE RIGHT SPOT! Fucking Rockies just decide to pop up wherever they feel like.

      Edit: spelling is hard

      • JcbAzPx@lemmy.world
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        2 months ago

        I don’t know. The Appalachians technically span an ocean. Though, they have a different name on the other side.

  • Techno-rat@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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    2 months ago

    Thats cute.

    Look at the danish mountains and despair!

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Himmelbjerget

    Sky Mountain! a whopping peak height of 140m elevation. A hike so deadly that it is a time honored tradition to let our kindergarten aged children ‘climb’ it. Takes an afternoon (barely) and theres a small giftshop selling icecream and knick knacks on top of it.

    Try and best that yanks! 😎

  • garth@sh.itjust.works
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    2 months ago

    Western trails: Ascend on nicely-graded switchbacks.

    Eastern trails: Ascend straight up a seasonal creek bed.

  • The Sierra Nevadas are no joke. If you drive through them in wintertime you are absolutely taking a risk, not only because you’re driving on windy (if well-maintained) mountain highways, but you may get stuck in snow despite your chains and will freeze to death.

    If you are lucky, a CHP or forest ranger may see you and help you out.

    Heaven forbid you have engine trouble or run out of fuel.

    • lgmjon64@lemmy.world
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      2 months ago

      I live in the Sierras and always keep a change of clothes, 72 hours of food and water (plus filter), a small pack, fishing gear and a radio in my car. You never know what could happen. I’ve had quick fishing trips turn into unplanned overnighters and had snow or fallen trees or wildfires block roads at all times of the year. We have exactly 2 roads into and out of our little valley.

  • amniotic druid@lemmy.world
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    2 months ago

    Its not the height, it’s the age. Thar be eldritch monsters in the Appalachians. Rockies is just aliens and (Gay) Bigfoot

    • AnarchoEngineer@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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      2 months ago

      Hey now, do you really think all the eldritch monsters just stayed in the appalachians? No.

      Thats why there are skinwalkers in the rockies; they’re just wendigo that heard there were taller mountains forming in the west and decided to migrate over.

      /s

  • Zink@programming.dev
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    2 months ago

    Sometimes it’s not the moutains that get you, it’s the smaller hills and valleys surrounding them because there are actually people and roads there.

    Sometimes if you make a wrong turn in Pittsburgh, you are not just going the wrong direction but are also at the wrong elevation or on the wrong layer, and there’s no looping around the block to get back to where you started.

    Disclaimer: This thread led me to read the Wikipedia article about Appalachia. Some definitions of the region do not include Pittsburgh or even parts of Pennsylvania, but at the same time there’s a photo of downtown Pittsburgh at the top of the article, so I went with it.

    • rumba@lemmy.zip
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      2 months ago

      A decent number of the Appalachians have roads that go near the top.

      • Speltrong@feddit.org
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        2 months ago

        That just means they have better engineers and braver drivers, or the mountains are older and they had more time

        • Schadrach@lemmy.sdf.org
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          2 months ago

          braver drivers,

          I used to joke that there were no bad drivers in WV, you either learned how to drive or you fell twenty feet off the road and got impaled by a tree. Unfortunately, since I was a kid we’ve put guard rails on a lot of those places.

  • BarneyPiccolo@lemmy.today
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    2 months ago

    I’ve lived in several places, all FLAT. Whenever I visit a mountainous place like Denver, it always seems so weird that there are these mountains always looming over me. At least you always know which way is west.

    • MacN'Cheezus@lemmy.today
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      2 months ago

      I grew up in hill country and I cannot for the life of me understand how people live in the flatlands. It makes me physically uncomfortable.

      • GalacticGrapefruit@lemmy.world
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        2 months ago

        Oh god, same. I’m a mountain kid, the plains make me agoraphobic as hell. I tried living in the Midwest. I literally was slowly going insane, the landscape and the people were driving me crazy. I’m not kidding, I had to come home and restart my prescription.

        Praire madness is so damn real. I thought it was made up. NO. I love my mountains, I can’t live without them.