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The White Mountains of California and Nevada are a triangular fault-block mountain range facing the Sierra Nevada across the upper Owens Valley. They extend for approximately as a greatly elevated plateau about wide on the south, narrowing to a point at the north, with elevations generally increasing south to north. The range's broad southern end is near the community of Big Pine, where Westgard Pass and Deep Springs Valley separate it from the Inyo Mountains. The narrow northern end is at Montgomery Pass, where U.S. Route 6 crosses. The Fish Lake Valley lies east of the range; the southeast part of the mountains are separated from the Silver Peak Range by block faulting across the Furnace Creek Fault Zone, forming a feeder valley to Fish Lake Valley. The range lies within the eastern section of the Inyo National Forest. ==Ecology== Ecologically, the White Mountains are like the other ranges in the Basin and Range Province; they are dry, but the upper slopes from hold open subalpine forests of Great Basin bristlecone pine on permeable dolomite and certain granite substrates and limber pine on less permeable rocky substrates. Middle slopes from have somewhat denser stands of piñon pine and Utah juniper. These upper and lower conifer zones are often separated by a zone of mountain mahogany brush. Various subspecies of sagebrush (''Artemisia tridentata'') extend from surrounding valleys to the lower alpine zone. A bristlecone pine in the southern part of the range is the oldest known living tree in the world, at 5063 years old.〔(【引用サイトリンク】title=Oldlist )〕 Pine nuts from piñon pine stands were harvested as a winter staple food by Paiute Indians whose descendants still live in adjacent valleys. The White Mountains also have small remnant groves of lodgepole pine, Jeffrey pine, ponderosa pine, Sierra juniper and aspen including an unusual dwarf variety. These species are common in the nearby and wetter Sierra Nevada range west of the Owens Valley and must have been more widespread in the White Mountains until Holocene droughts extirpated them in most of this drier range. A number of plant species are endemic to the White Mountains, including the White Mountains horkelia, ''Horkelia hispidula''. Fauna include two herds of bighorn sheep, mule deer, marmots and feral horses. Permanent streams have no native fish, but there are naturalized populations of trout including rare Paiute cutthroat trout which is protected from angling. Birds include Clark's nutcracker and other Corvidae which eat and cache pine nuts. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア(Wikipedia)』 ■ウィキペディアで「White Mountains (California)」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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