The Rocky Mountains are an incredible mountain range located in North America in the Western Hemisphere. The mountain range extends from northern Colorado to southwest Canada. It is home to a diverse ecosystem, both geographically and biologically, and is revered as a monumental landform around the world. The geological history of the Rocky Mountains is an aggregation of millions of years. In short, the formation of the Rockies is the result of hundreds and millions of years of uplift by tectonic plates and millions of years of erosion and ice helping to sculpt the mountains to be what we let's see today. The majority of rocks that make up the Rocky Mountains were originally simple shales, siltstones, and sandstones accompanied by small amounts of volcanic rocks that formally formed over about 1.8 to 2 billion years in the ancient sea. 1.7 to 1.6 billion years ago, these sedimentary rocks found themselves caught in the collision zone between parts of the Earth's crust and its tectonic plates. The incredible heat at the heart of the mountain range then recrystallized the rock into metamorphic rock through the heat and pressure of the collision forces. Eventually, the shales would be transformed into both shales and gneiss. The granite found in the Rocky Mountain parks is believed to have come from pre-existing metamorphic rocks created shortly after the Earth's formation. Ultimately, the high mountains of the time were slowly eroded to form a flat surface exposing metamorphic rocks and granite. This process occurred approximately 1,300 to 500 million years ago. This flat surface would become covered with shallow seas and rocks from the Paleozoic period and would settle down and eventually cover the surface. There are... middle of paper... tents and then the tents became ranches and farms. Forts and stations eventually grew into towns and some towns were later able to develop into towns. .edu/news/press/2011/rockies-origin.html http://www.nature.nps.gov/geology/parks/romo/ http://www.mountainnature.com/Ecology/ http://www. mountainnature.com/Wildlife/WildlifeEcology.htm http://www.frommers.com/destinations/rocky-mountain-national-park/787037 This article incorporates public domain material from United States Geological Survey document: TJ Stohlgren. "Rocky Mountains". "Events in the West (1528-1536)". 2001. Retrieved April 15, 2012. "Events in the West (1528-1536)". 2001. Retrieved April 15, 2012. "Yellowstone National Park". April 4, 2012. Retrieved April 15 2012.