California & The Great Basin Elevation Tints Fine Art Print Map

Details The Great Basin covers the vast interior portion of the intermountain West whose rivers and streams do not reach the sea. All of California and Nevada are on the map, as well as most of Utah and Arizona and parts of Baja California Norte and Somoma, Oregon, and Idaho. Thats the hydrographic definition, but there are other more expansive ones: the physiographic, anthropological and biogeographical definitions all extend further, especially to the south. The name was coined by John Fremont, who had a gift for naming: he also gave us the “Golden Gate. The Great Basin in its present form developed around 2 million years ago, when the rising Sierra Nevada and Cascade Ranges started blocking much of the moisture off the Pacific. Its many internal ranges are largely the product of longer term Basin-and-Range rifting, part of the tectonic process that is producing the Gulf of California. In geological time the Great Basin is brand new and its hydrological definition might almo