Week 5 - Converging Plates - Robbie Ficalora

Feeling nostalgic for some King's Quest and other old-school point and click adventure games, I thought I would make my way to the Sierra Fault line as it was a convergent Oceanic/Continental; and to see if I could find the mountain that appears in their logo!

Sierra Entertainment - circa 1990

Little did I know before making the trek was that their logo was not of a Sierra Nevada mountain but that of the Matterhorn in the Alps! Gah! How could the company responsible for Leisure Suit Larry lead me astray!?

The Real Sierra Nevada Mountains

The region originated over 200 million years ago when Farallon Plate was engulfed by the North American Plate through subduction, leading to the present day mountain range through uplift and it's deposits of igneous rock in the form of granite. Currently, the mountains are still lifting .01-.03 mm however, the compression that was occurring from the Farallon Plate into the North American Plate has been replaced by shearing fault forces from the Pacific Plate.

-Robbie