[Old Fossil]

Originally Posted by MOKAN

Interesting. I wonder if its typical for erosion to occur on the south side and/or if that has anything to do with more sun exposure.

I've learned something here while reading this thread, searching Google, and looking at Google Maps. I didn't realize Mount Magazine and Mount Nebo aren't part of the Ouachitas. I had assumed the Arkansas River valley was the dividing line, but apparently at least Mount Magazine is part of the Ozark National Forest.

I think the reason for the south side erosion is because during the uplift the rocks tilted south and that side was more broken up and fragile so more subject to erosion. As was posted above, the prevailing weather in this part of the country , now, comes from the southwest, but we don't know about million's of years ago.

If you go up and look at the rock formations on Mt. Magazine you will find they are on a horizontal plane as the Ozarks and not tilted as the Ouachitas.

[latunafish]

very informative thread, i had also assumed that the arkansas river valley was the dividing line for the two mountain ranges. thanks for the info.

[Unsettomati]

There is no precise definition of a mountain or mountains. However, there are some broad definitions.

Dictionaries:

noun
1.
a natural elevation of the earth's surface rising more or less abruptly to a summit, and attaining an altitude greater than that of a hill, usually greater than 2000 feet (610 meters).

Mountain | Define Mountain at Dictionary.com

noun, often attributive \ˈmau̇n-tən\
: an area of land that rises very high above the land around it and that is higher than a hill

Mountain - Definition and More from the Free Merriam-Webster Dictionary

The United States Geological Survey:

Q: What is the difference between lake and pond; mountain and hill; or river and creek?

A: There are no official definitions for generic terms as applied to geographic features. Most descriptions are ambiguous at best. The Geographic Names Information System database (GNIS) utilizes 63 broad categories of feature types originally defined solely to simplify the query and retrieval of similar features from the database.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

As for mountains and hills...the British Ordnance Survey once defined a mountain as having 1,000 feet of elevation, anything less was a hill, but the distinction was abandoned sometime in the 1920's. There was even a movie with this as its theme in the late 1990's - The Englishman That Went Up a Hill and Down a Mountain. The U.S. Board on Geographic Names once stated that the difference between a hill and a mountain in the U.S. was 1,000 feet of local relief, but even this was abandoned in the early 1970's.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

So what does this tell us? Broad agreement on such questions is essentially impossible, which is why there are no official feature classification standards.

USGS Multimedia Gallery: (Audio)--What is the difference between lake and pond; mountain and hill; or river and creek?

None of the definitions hinge on the manner of creation of the landform - I have no idea where that comes from.

The Ouachita Mountains are clearly mountains.

[Old Fossil]

O.K., we have been writing about the Ouachitas so here are some photos showing what they look like inside. All my photos of the Ouachitas are only of the Indian quarries so these Attachments are from the cinnabar mining area in the foothills south of the mountains but the composition and geology is the same. In the first photo, Vanessa the archeologist, is standing above the contact point where the plates to your left in the photo are tilted to the south and plates to your right are vertical although they have been shattered by the pressure of the movements. In the second photo you can see the vertical plate behind Chester in the red shirt. In the third photo, Meeks the archeologist, is standing with a photo stick by a plate that appears vertical in the photo, but is actually tilting north, and behind him is a plate tilting west. All this is within a quarter mile of each other and is only a small representation of what is there. Fascinating country.

[imbored198824]

My mom lives in the boston mountains in Newton county. There are a couple peaks near her that are over 2600 feet. The weather is even a little cooler up there. It's especially noticeable when you have a borderline snow event. Start in Harrison it's rainy and 36. By the time you get to deer it could be 28 and snowing. My mom found this out last year...lots of people stuck on the roads in the higher terrain.

[Old Fossil]

Originally Posted by imbored198824

My mom lives in the boston mountains in Newton county. There are a couple peaks near her that are over 2600 feet. The weather is even a little cooler up there. It's especially noticeable when you have a borderline snow event. Start in Harrison it's rainy and 36. By the time you get to deer it could be 28 and snowing. My mom found this out last year...lots of people stuck on the roads in the higher terrain.

Great country around Deer. Several years ago we had an archeology dig in Spradley Hollow near Deer. We camped on the school grounds, the Deer School cooks fed us in the cafeteria, and we set up our lab in the school. It was a great experience.

[Rock Climber]

I was looking around at weather cameras locally this morning, and I came across this one from a town called Waldron, in western Arkansas. This is the view of the weather cam located at the high school there. The mountains in that part of the state are "real mountains" in the sense that you see them on the horizon from a long way off.

http://wwc.instacam.com/instacamimg/WLDWL/WLDWL_l.jpg

[Rock Climber]

And its not a coincidence that the movie True Grit, which is based in that part of the Ouachitas was filmed in New Mexico. A little bit dryer and that part of Arkansas would definitely resemble something out west. Piney mountains, rocky outcrops, etc.

[Old Fossil]

Originally Posted by Rock Climber

I was looking around at weather cameras locally this morning, and I came across this one from a town called Waldron, in western Arkansas. This is the view of the weather cam located at the high school there. The mountains in that part of the state are "real mountains" in the sense that you see them on the horizon from a long way off.

http://wwc.instacam.com/instacamimg/WLDWL/WLDWL_l.jpg

And that is pretty close to the northern edge of the Ouachita Mountain Range and what you see in the photo is probably on the Ouachita National Forest. They have a Ranger Station in Waldron. That is rough country back on there. During one of my archeology contracts with the ONF I documented some old, abandoned, mines back in there, and later as a volunteer helped assess the damage to a prehistoric archeology site caused by a log road being built in the wrong place.

[Tyryztoll]

We just moved to the northeastern Dallas suburbs and are thrilled that we have something even resembling mountains within a mornings drive now. I'm assuming they get tons of people from North Texas up there for tourism. Can't wait to check out Hot Springs and the Ouachitas for ourselves.