why do mountain ranges lay north and south?

Question

why do mountain ranges run north and south in North America and not east and west

Answer 1

It has to due with the continental folding that has occured in our part of the world. Alot of the plates that make up North America, their plate boundaries run north to south. There are infact some east-west mountain ranges, they are called the Transverse Ranges and exist in Southern California. Most people know them as the Santa Monica Mts., San Bernardino Mts, etc. The mountain ranges in Jamica and the islands in the Carribean are actually a island arc chain, formed by the Carribean and Atlantic plate moving into each other, when plates do this they create a subduction zone and create trenches. Along these trenches island arc chains form, like the Caribbean islands, another example is Japan, the Phillippines and where the Island of Sumatra is, which is created by the Java Trench.

Answer 2

Just an educated guess: America separated from Europe and Africa a long time ago, right? The plaques that caused this movement are still between the continents. Think of the Atlantic Ocean as a huge crack. Well, if it is this crack, it's a crack running north and south. The Mountains have to do with this movement and they run parallel to the plaques. Notice the Swiss Alps and the Pyrenees run east and west. Maybe that has to do with the fact that the Mediterranean could be another crack, but running east and west.

Answer 3

Mountains line the edge of tectonic plates. They are the result of crumpling of the Earth's crust as one plate rises over another.

The mountain chain down the west of America is simply the edge of the massive Pacific plate.

Note that the highest range, the Himalayas, runs east-west. The Himalayas were formed when the Indian plate bashed into the Asian plate.

For those who cannot quite get their heads around that, there are seashells in the rock near the top of Everest, showing clearly how this rock was pushed up from the seabed to over 5 miles high.

Unless of course you are a creationist and argue its just another trick of God to fool us all.

Answer 4

Not all of them do. The Blue Mountains of Jamaica run from East to West as well as the John Crow Mountain range of that same island.

Answer 5

They do? You had better tell that to the Uinta Mountains east of Salt Lake City. They trend east-west.

Answer 6

This is because the tectonic plates move east to west. Push a piece of paper on two opposite sides. The paper always folds parallel to the sides and perpendicular to the direction that you push.

Answer 7

Erosion. The direction of water runoff, on a large scale.