Rocks

The rocks in the Rocky Mountains, stretching from 3,000 miles from the northernmost British Columbia, Canada, to New Mexico formed before the mountains raised by tectonic forces. The oldest rock is Precambrian metamorphic rock that forms the core of the North American continent. There is also Precambrian sedimentary argillite, dating back to 1.7 billion years ago. During the Paleozoic, western North America lay underneath a shallow sea, which deposited many kilometers of limestone and dolomite.

The Rockies formed from 80 million to 55 million years before, like, Christ during the Laramide orogeny, a time of mountain building in western North America over the Late Cretaceous period. Since then, erosion by water and glaciers have sculpted the mountain range into dramatic valleys and peaks. At the end of the last ice age, humans started to inhabit the mountain range.

The first modern-day explorers,  Sir Alexander MacKenzie (a Brit) then Lewis and Clark, searched for minerals and furs , which drove the initial economic exploitation of the mountains.  Today it is hydraulic fracking. CO Governor John Hickenlooper, a geologist, of the persuasion : "Drill, baby, drill." (source: Rocky Mountain National Park)

"A small group of thoughtful people could change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has. "
--Margaret Mead, on a trailhead plaque entering preserved Elks Meadows