Mount Rushmore

[Shonnon]

The flora and fauna of Mount Rushmore are similar to those of the rest of the Black Hills region of South Dakota. Birds including the turkey vulture, bald eagle, hawk, and meadowlark fly around Mount Rushmore, occasionally making nesting spots in the ledges of the mountain. Smaller birds, including songbirds, nuthatches, and woodpeckers, inhabit the surrounding pine forests. Terrestrial mammals include the mouse, chipmunk, squirrel, skunk, porcupine, raccoon, beaver, badger, coyote, bighorn sheep, and bobcat. In addition, several species of frogs and snakes inhabit the region. The Grizzly Bear brook and Starling Basin brook, the two streams in the memorial, support fish such as the longnose dace and the brook trout.[28] Mountain goats are not indigenous to the area but can also be found here. They are descended from goats which were a gift from Canada to Custer State Park in 1924 but later escaped.[29]

At lower elevations, coniferous trees, mainly the Ponderosa pine, surround most of the monument, providing shade from the sun. Other trees include the bur oak, the Black Hills spruce, and the cottonwood. Nine species of shrubs grow near Mount Rushmore. There is also a wide variety of wildflowers, including especially the snapdragon, sunflower, and violet. Towards higher elevations, plant life becomes sparser.[29] However, only approximately five percent of the plant species found in the Black Hills are indigenous to the region.[30]

The area receives about 18 inches (460 mm) of precipitation on average per year, enough to support abundant animal and plant life. Trees and other plants help to control surface runoff. Dikes, seeps, and springs help to dam up water that is flowing downhill, providing watering spots for animals. In addition, stones like sandstone and limestone help to hold groundwater, creating aquifers.[31]

Through the study of tree rings, it has been determined that forest fires have occurred in the Ponderosa forests surrounding Mount Rushmore around every 27 years based on evidence of fire scars found within tree core samples. Large conflagrations are not common. Most events have been ground fires that serve to clear forest debris.[32]

[Shonnon]

Photo of the memorial entrance, which was taken upon visiting Mt. Rushmore October, 2007.

[Shonnon]

Mt. Rushmore was sculpted by Gutzon Borglum. The sculpture depicts the heads of former United States presidents George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Theodore Roosevelt and Abraham Lincoln. It is 1,745 feet (532 m) above sea level. The entire memorial is 1,278.45 acres (5.17 km2). Each head is 60 feet (18 m) tall.

[Shonnon]

he Black Hills, as seen from near Mount Rushmore

[Shonnon]

 Mount Rushmore with the morning sun shining on the faces of the monument.

[Shonnon]

Mount Rushmore is largely composed of granite. The memorial is carved on the northwest margin of the Harney Peak granite batholith in the Black Hills of South Dakota, so the geologic formations of the heart of the Black Hills region are also evident at Mount Rushmore. The batholith magma intruded into the pre-existing mica schist rocks during the Proterozoic, roughly 1.6 billion years ago.[33] Coarse grained pegmatite dikes are associated with the granite intrusion of Harney Peak and are visibly lighter in color, thus explaining the light-colored streaks on the foreheads of the presidents.

The Black Hills granites were exposed to erosion during the Neoproterozoic, but were later buried by sandstone and other sediments during the Cambrian. Remaining buried throughout the Paleozoic, they were re-exposed again during the Laramide orogeny around 70 million years ago.[33] The Black Hills area was uplifted as an elongated geologic dome.[34] Subsequent erosion stripped the granite of the overlying sediments and the softer adjacent schist. Some schist does remain and can be seen as the darker material just below the sculpture of Washington.

Borglum selected Mount Rushmore as the site for several reasons. The rock of the mountain is composed of smooth, fine-grained granite. The durable granite erodes only 1 inch (25 mm) every 10,000 years, thus was more than sturdy enough to support the sculpture and its long term exposure.[13] The mountain's height of 5,725 feet (1,745 m) above sea level[3] made it suitable, and because it faces the southeast, the workers also had the advantage of sunlight for most of the day.

[Shonnon]

Tourism

Tourism is South Dakota's second-largest industry, and Mount Rushmore is the state's top tourist attraction.[6] The memorial hosts nearly three million visitors a year.[7] The site attracts many visitors over the week of the Sturgis Motorcycle Rally.

[Shonnon]

Because of its fame as a monument, Mount Rushmore is frequently discussed or depicted in media, film and popular culture. The memorial was iconically used as the location of the climactic chase scene in Alfred Hitchcock's 1959 movie North by Northwest. Scriptwriter Ernest Lehman recalled that in the course of screenwriting, Hitchcock "murmured wistfully, 'I always wanted to do a chase across the faces of Mount Rushmore.'"[35] The scene was not actually filmed at the monument, since permission to shoot an attempted killing on the face of a national monument was refused by the National Park Service. In the movie, the villain's house is located on a fictitious forested plateau behind the monument.[36]

Mt. Rushmore was also featured in National Treasure: Book of Secrets. In the movie, the monument was constructed to hide the City of Gold.[37]

[Shonnon]

Notes and references

    ^ Mount Rushmore National Memorial. December 6, 2005.60 SD Web Traveler, Inc. Retrieved April 7, 2006.
    ^ McGeveran, William A. Jr. et al. (2004). The World Almanac and Book of Facts 2004. New York: World Almanac Education Group, Inc. ISBN 0-88687-910-8.
    ^ a b Mount Rushmore, South Dakota (November 1, 2004). Peakbagger.com. Retrieved March 13, 2006.
    ^ Penn & Teller: bulls**t!, episode 5x08 "Mount Rushmore", May 10, 2007
    ^ "Making Mount Rushmore | Mount Rushmore". Oh, Ranger!. Retrieved October 31, 2012.
    ^ a b c "Mount Rushmore National Memorial Frequently Asked Questions". National Park Service. Retrieved December 2, 2009.
    ^ a b "Mount Rushmore Park Home". National Park Service. Retrieved April 8, 2012.
    ^ Belanger, Ian A. et al. "Mt. Rushmore — presidents on the rocks" at the Wayback Machine (archived May 14, 2006)
    ^ Keystone Area Historical Society Keystone Characters. Retrieved October 3, 2006.
    ^ "Honeycombing process explained from". nps.gov. 2004-06-14. Archived from the original on 2008-08-01. Retrieved 2010-03-20.
    ^ "Geology Fieldnotes". nps.gov. 2005-01-04. Retrieved 2010-10-22.
    ^ a b "People & Events: The Carving of Stone Mountain". American Experience. PBS. Retrieved 17 March 2010.
    ^ a b c d e Carving History (October 2, 2004). National Park Service.
    ^ Fite, Gilbert C. Mount Rushmore (May 2003). ISBN 0-9646798-5-X, the standard scholarly study.
    ^ a b Albert Boime, "Patriarchy Fixed in Stone: Gutzon Borglum's 'Mount Rushmore'," American Art, Vol. 5, No. 1/2. (Winter – Spring, 1991), pp. 142–67.
    ^ a b American Experience "Timeline: Mount Rushmore" (2002). Retrieved March 20, 2006.
    ^ Mount Rushmore National Memorial.
    ^ Mount Rushmore National Memorial. Tourism in South Dakota. Laura R. Ahmann. Retrieved March 19, 2006.
    ^ Mount Rushmore National Memorial. Outdoorplaces.com. Retrieved June 7, 2006.
    ^ "George Bush: Remarks at the Dedication Ceremony of the Mount Rushmore National Memorial in South Dakota". The American Presidency Project. July 3, 1991. Retrieved November 1, 2012.
    ^ "Hall of Records". Mount Rushmore National Memorial web site. National Park Service. 2004-06-14. Archived from the original on 2007-10-11. Retrieved 2007-07-04.
    ^ "For Mount Rushmore, An Overdue Face Wash". Washington Post. 11 July 2005. Retrieved 17 March 2010.
    ^ Matthew Glass, "Producing Patriotic Inspiration at Mount Rushmore," Journal of the American Academy of Religion, Vol. 62, No. 2. (Summer, 1994), pp. 265–283.
    ^ David Melmer (13 December 2004). "Historic changes for Mount Rushmore". Indiancountrytoday. Archived from the original on 2010-08-08. Retrieved 17 March 2010.
    ^ Lame Deer, John (Fire) and Richard Erdoes. Lame Deer Seeker of Visions. Simon and Schuster, New York, New York, 1972. Paperback ISBN 0-671-55392-5
    ^ "Gutzon Borglum, The Story of Mount Rushmore". Ralphmag.org. Retrieved 17 March 2010.
    ^ "UN Probe: U.S. Should Return Stolen Sacred Land, Including Mt. Rushmore, to Native Americans". Democracy Now!. Retrieved 22 May 2012.
    ^ "Nature & Science- Animals". NPS. 26 November 2006. Retrieved 17 March 2010.
    ^ a b Mount Rushmore- Flora and Fauna. American Park Network. URL accessed on March 16, 2006. Web archive link Archived March 17, 2006 at the Wayback Machine
    ^ "Nature & Science – Plants". NPS. 6 December 2006. Retrieved 17 March 2010.
    ^ Nature & Science- Groundwater. National Park Service. Retrieved April 1, 2006.
    ^ Nature & Science- Forests. National Park Service. Retrieved April 1, 2006.
    ^ a b Geologic Activity. National Park Service.
    ^ Irvin, James R. Great Plains Gallery (2001). Retrieved March 16, 2006.
    ^ Barbara Straumann, "Rewriting American Foundational Myths in Alfred Hitchcock's North by Northwest", in Martin Heusser and Gudrun Grabher, American Foundational Myths (2002), p. 201.
    ^ North by Northwest: Hitchcock’s House on Mt. Rushmore. Hookedonhouses.net. Retrieved on 2011-10-06.
    ^ "National Treasure 2: Book Of Secrets Script - Dialogue Transcript". Drew's Script-O-Rama. Retrieved February 18, 2012.

Further reading

    Larner, Jesse. Mount Rushmore: An Icon Reconsidered New York: Nation Books, 2002.
    Taliaferro, John. Great White Fathers: The Story of the Obsessive Quest to Create Mount Rushmore. New York: PublicAffairs, c2002. Puts the creation of the monument into a historical and cultural context.
    The National Parks: Index 2001–2003. Washington: United States Department of the Interio

[Shonnon]

Sign near Mt. Rushmore, South Dakota, informing travelers that the Alfred Hithcock film "North by Northwest" was partially filmed in the area

[Shonnon]

North by Northwest is a 1959 MGM thriller by Alfred Hitchcock. The film stars Cary Grant, Eva Marie Saint, James Mason, Leo G. Carroll, and Martin Landau.

This image is a screen shot made by user Petrusbarbygere from a public domain movie trailer. Trailers for movies released before 1964 are in the Public Domain, because they were never separately copyrighted.

Licence : http://www.sabucat.com/?pg=copyright

[Shonnon]

[Shonnon]

[Shonnon]

[Shonnon]