Project 365: Day 9

Fairbanks is situated in a  low lying plain of rolling hills, sandwiched between two great mountain ranges; the older Brooks Range to the north and the younger Alaska Range to the south. 400 million years ago, when most of life on earth was still soft and squishy and restricted to the seas, a rim of mountains emerged from what is now the Bering Sea. The bedrock of these oceanic mountains was eventually lifted and folded as the Asian Plate collided with the Arctic Plate 150 million years ago. Slowly and steadily over millions of years accreted material built the Brooks Range high above the landscape. Alaska was beginning to take shape. Plate boundaries shifted as time passed, slacking to the north and adding pressure from the south. The end of the dinosaurs 65 million years ago marked the beginning of the Alaska Range. Two Goliaths began butting heads as the Pacific Plate initiated its subduction beneath the North American Plate. Fueled by unimaginable heat and pressure, great towers of the earth's crust were thrust into existence, while bellowing volcanoes dumped fields of molten material over the landscape; a process still happening along the margins of the Pacific Basin today. The Alaska Range is one of the world's most majestic natural features, and contains the highest peak in North America, Denali; which stands tall and proud at 20, 237 feet.

Canon EOS 60D, Canon EF 70-200mm f/4L USM + 1.4 ext, ISO-200 f/5.6 @ 1/1250 sec