page_title: Mountain chain
section_title: Dominant rocks and mountain forms
hierarchical_section_title: Mountain chain / Dominant rocks and mountain forms
caption_attribution_description: I took this image in 2001--MONGO 10:07, 19 February 2006 (UTC) Vedauwoo rocks are located in Medicine Bow - Routt National Forest in Wyoming, U.S. They are easily accessible from I80 and are about 10 miles east of Laramie, Wyoming.
context_page_description: A mountain chain is a row of high mountain summits, a linear sequence of interconnected or related mountains, or a contiguous ridge of mountains within a larger mountain range. The term is also used for elongated fold mountains with several parallel chains.
  While in mountain ranges, the term mountain chain is common, in hill ranges a sequence of hills tends to be referred to a ridge or hill chain.
  Elongated mountain chains occur most frequently in the orogeny of fold mountains, and nappe belts. Other types of range such as horst ranges, fault block mountain or truncated uplands rarely form parallel mountain chains. However, if a truncated upland is eroded into a high table land, the incision of valleys can lead to the formations of mountain or hill chains.
context_section_description: Nappe or fold mountains, with their roughly parallel mountain chains, generally have a common geological age, but may consist of various types of rock. For example, in the Central Alps, granitic rocks, gneisses and metamorphic slate are found, while to the north and south, are the Limestone Alps. The Northern Limestone Alps are, in turn, followed by soft flysch mountains and the molasse zone. 
  The type of rock influences the appearance of the mountain ranges very markedly, because erosion leads to very different topography depending on the hardness of the rock and its petrological structure. In addition to height and climate, other factors are the layering of the rock, its gradient and aspect, the types of waterbody and the lines of dislocation. For hard rock massifs, rugged rock faces (e.g. in the Dolomites) and mighty scree slopes are typical. By contrast, flysch or slate forms gentler mountain shapes and kuppen or domed mountaintops, because the rock is not porous, but easily shaped.
caption: The remains of an old mountain chain in the Laramie Mountains, Colorado
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