Strawberry Mountain Wilderness ranges in elevation from 4,000 feet (1,219 m) to 9,038 feet (2,755 m), at the summit of Strawberry Mountain, and contains five of the seven major life zones in North America.[3] There are seven alpine lakes in the wilderness, including Strawberry Lake, High Lake, and Slide Lake. It also contains the headwaters of numerous streams, including Pine, Indian, Strawberry, Canyon, Bear, Lake, Wall, Roberts, and Big Creek. Strawberry Creek includes the 40-foot (12 m) Strawberry Falls.[4]
Geology
The basement geology of the Strawberry Mountain Wilderness is a Permian-age ophiolite complex consisting of a sequence of ultramafic, mafic, and silicic igneous rocks, interpreted to have formed as deep crustal rocks near an intra-oceanic island arc system. The sequence is distinctive from other Permo-Triassic ophiolite-type complexes in Western North America by its large volume of silicic intrusive and volcanic rocks. By the mid-Triassic, this complex had been heavily fragmented, uplifted, and overlain by Triassic-age oceanic sediments. All of these Permo-Triassic rocks were incorporated onto the western margin of North America by the mid-Cretaceous. Extensive Tertiary-age continental volcanic flows covered the region, and subsequent uplift and erosion has exposed the older basement. More recently, glaciation carved U-shaped valleys and hollowed out beds that today hold seven alpine lakes.[2]
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