N.C. Mountains to Sea Trivia Quiz

Answer: Desert

North Carolina is 53,821 square miles (139,396 km2) in area, and is almost 600 miles (900 km) across from east to west and 150 miles (240 km) from north to south. If you start in the Appalachian Mountains in the western part of the state at the Tennessee border and travel east to the Atlantic Ocean, it's pretty much downhill all the way, but you will find great variation.

While no extensive desert exists as a geographical region of North Carolina, it surprised me to learn that a small desert appears on early maps of Robeson County, near the town of Rennert, in the inner Coastal Plain.

It is most likely that the oval-shaped area labeled a desert (sometimes called the "Blue Desert" or "Great Desert" or "Big Desert" or "Flat") is actually what is termed a "Carolina Bay" believed by some scientists to have been formed by an ancient meteor shower or falling pieces of a comet that also formed a series of lakes including White Lake, Jones Lake, and Lake Waccamaw in southeastern North Carolina.

Other theories involving water, wind, or other natural terrestrial processes have been proposed as causes of Carolina Bays. However it came to be, the "desert" can be seen as a perfect ellipse in images of Rennert, North Carolina.

Answer: The Fall Line

The escarpment that sharply divides the Piedmont and Coastal Plain regions in North Carolina is part of the Atlantic Seaboard Fall Line or Fall Zone which runs for 900 miles (1400 km) north to south in the eastern United States. It is a line of erosion formed because the hard rocks of the hilly plateau wear away at a slower rate than the soft, sedimentary rocks of the coastal plain.

When rivers cross the fall line, rapids or waterfalls often occur, so goods being shipped upriver from the coast would have to be dropped off where navigation became difficult or impossible. Because of this, and because the moving water could be used for power, cities like Raleigh, Rocky Mount, Greenville, and Fayetteville grew up along the fall line.

Answer: From Murphy to Manteo

Sometimes reversed - "from Manteo to Murphy" - the phrase "from Murphy to Manteo" is used to indicate that the issue under discussion applies to the entire state of North Carolina. Its first public use is recorded during a political campaign for governor in 1876, in which Zebulon B. Vance and Justice Thomas Settle, Jr. squared off in debates throughout the state. Manteo, in Dare County on the Atlantic coast, and Murphy, in the mountains of Cherokee County, are actually 545 miles (around 877 km) apart in driving distance, missing the exact distance across the state from east to west by around 15 miles.

While Wilmington is on the coast, Raleigh is on the fall line rather than across the state. Asheville is on the far western edge of North Carolina, but Myrtle Beach is in a different state: South Carolina. Burgaw (the county seat) and Yamacraw (really just a crossroads) are both in Pender County, only a few miles apart.

Answer: Mount Mitchell

Mount Mitchell is near Burnsville in Yancey County, North Carolina, close to the Blue Ridge Parkway. The mountain is named for Elisha Mitchell, who measured its height in 1835, when it would have been the highest peak in the young United States, before Texas and other territories in western North America became part of the nation. Mitchell, a professor at the University of North Carolina, later died in a fall at a spot ironically named "Mitchell Falls".

The peak is within Mount Mitchell State Park, which is surrounded by the Pisgah National Forest.

Answer: The Uwharrie Mountains

The Uwharrie Mountains in the central Piedmont region are around 500 million years old, as old as the dinosaurs. If we think about the cliché "as old as the hills", we are talking about mountains like the Uwharries that have eroded over the millennia to become only 600-945 feet (965-1520 meters) high.

This is a good elevation for hiking the Uwharrie Trail, which runs for 21 miles (around 34 km) through the Uwharrie National Forest. The vegetation of this area reflects its geographical location between the mountains and the sea, and nearly 700 species of plants grow there, including longleaf pines, flowering shrubs like mountain laurel, and deciduous forests of hickory and oak trees.

Answer: Appalachian balds

Because the Southern Appalachians of North Carolina are in a climate that is too warm for them to have an alpine zone, the crests of the mountains are covered by grasses or shrubs rather than trees that would grow at the same altitude in cooler climates, such as the northern ridges of the Appalachian range. One such bald mountain is Gregory Bald in the Great Smoky Mountains, along the North Carolina border with Tennessee.

Another is Roan High Knob in Roan Mountain State Park, where the Cherokee National Forest and Pisgah National Forest meet.

At Roan Mountain, the world's largest natural growth of rhododendrons - beautiful, flowering shrubs - can be found. While balds do not have large trees, heath balds have many shrubs, including rhododendrons, mountain laurel, and several kinds of berry shrubs. Grass balds are covered with mountain oat-grass, sedges, and other low plants.

Answer: A monadnock

In the classic television series "The Andy Griffith Show" the residents of the fictional town of Mayberry often go to the larger town of "Mount Pilot" for what they interpret to be a more urban experience. The actor Andy Griffith grew up in the mountain region of North Carolina, in Mount Airy, and he shifted the name of the nearby town Pilot Mountain to create the imaginary place.

The mountain that gives the town its name is a small mountain (2,421 feet above sea level) that has eroded into the interesting formation called a monadnock.

The word "monadnock" is derived from a Native American name applied to a mountain in New Hampshire that still carries the name. Pilot Mountain itself originally had the name "Jomeokee" - meaning "pilot" or "great guide" in the Saura tribal language. Two peaks - Big Pinnacle and Little Pinnacle - share Pilot Mountain, and the larger pinnacle - known locally as "The Knob" - serves as a landmark visible for miles.

Answer: The Green Swamp

While Black Mountain is in the mountain region of North Carolina and the Outer Banks are in the outer coastal plain, also known as the Tidewater, only the Green Swamp is in the inner coastal plain of southeastern North Carolina where Venus fly traps, pitcher plants, orchids, and other unique species grow naturally. Unlike the stereotypical swamp, much of the Green Swamp Preserve is made up of grassy savannas with stands of longleaf pines, interspersed with wetlands called "pocosins" or "scrub bogs" - unique ecosystems that have acidic, sandy soils filled with peat and other organic materials.

The plants of these areas are adapted to survive and thrive after fires, and controlled burns must be used to conserve this ecosystem, one that once covered many acres of the inner coastal plain but now is confined to 16,000 acres managed by the Nature Conservancy.

Answer: Albemarle Sound and Pamlico Sound

A "sound" in geographical terms is an inlet of the ocean, somewhat like a bay, but larger. When a sound becomes enclosed by barrier islands, as is the case with Pamlico and Albemarle Sounds on the coast of North Carolina, it also may be called a lagoon. Pamlico Sound is the largest lagoon on the east coast of the United States and is also an estuary, located at the mouths of the Neuse and Pamlico/Tar Rivers.

It is so large the explorer Verrazano thought it was the Pacific Ocean. Albemarle Sound is an estuary, as well, where a number of rivers come together, including the Chowan and Roanoke.

Historic Roanoke Island - the site of Sir Walter Raleigh's first English settlement and the tragic "Lost Colony" - is located on Albemarle Sound, as is Kitty Hawk, where the Wright brothers made their first flight in 1903.

Answer: Cape Fear River

While all of the rivers mentioned are in North Carolina, the Cape Fear River, which flows into the Atlantic Ocean a few miles downriver from Wilmington, is at 202 miles (325km) the longest of the four (the Neuse is longer) and has the largest watershed, covering more than 9,000 square miles, all of it in North Carolina.

The Cape Fear river begins in the Piedmont region, with the convergence of the Haw and Deep Rivers in Chatham County, and major tributaries are the Black River, which runs through the Green Swamp, and the Northeast Cape Fear, which enters the mainstream at Wilmington. Because it is open to the sea, with no barrier islands, the 35 mile long estuary of the Cape Fear experiences tides and fluctuations in the amount of sediment and salinity.

The basin of the Cape Fear is home to a great variety of ecosystems but is threatened by industrialization and by agricultural and residential impacts.