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The 'Ilgachuz Range' is a mountain range on the Chilcotin Plateau in British Columbia, Canada, located some 350 kilometres (215 mi) north-northwest of Vancouver and 30 kilometres north of Anahim Lake. The highest peak of the range is Far Mountain. The range supports a unique grassland ecosystem. This type of grassland has not been seen anywhere else in central and southern British Columbia.

Contents

Geology

Subsidiary peaks

Itcha Ilgachuz Provincial Park

See also

External links

Geology

The Ilgachuz Range is a late Tertiary massive shield volcano in the Anahim Volcanic Belt which includes other immediately-nearby ranges, the Rainbow and Itcha Ranges. The shield is now eroded by glaciers carving into the volcanic rock. The volcanism that created the shield is not well studed and is poorly understood. It is thought to be the result of the North American Plate passing over a hotspot, similar to the one feeding the Hawaiian Islands, known as the Anahim hotspot.
The shield volcano erupted special kinds of low-viscosity magmas, the youngest of which are several million years old. The shield has a diameter of 25 kilometres. Like most volcanoes in British Columbia, it is part of the Pacific Ring of Fire which includes over 160 active volcanoes.
The Ilgachuz Range was created by two chemically separate magmatic periods; an early complex series of trachyte and rhyolite eruptions, and late extrusion of a sequence of basaltic lava flows. Evacuation of the volcano's magma chamber resulted in the failure of one or more centrally located calderas.

Subsidiary peaks

The Ilgachuz Range contains 13 peaks, including:

★ Calliope Mountain

★ Camlick Mountain

★ Campanula Peak

★ Cindercone Peak

★ Crepis Peak

★ Far Mountain

★ Go-around Mountain

★ Hump Mountain

★ Mizzen Mountain

★ Mount Scot

★ Pipe Organ Mountain

★ Saxifraga Mountain

★ Tundra Mountain

Itcha Ilgachuz Provincial Park

The Itcha and Ilgachuz Ranges form the core of the Itcha Ilgachuz Provincial Park, while the Rainbow Range lies partly in the Tweedsmuir South Provincial Park.

See also

★ Rainbow Range

★ Itcha Range

★ Anahim hotspot

★ Anahim Volcanic Belt

★ List of volcanoes in Canada

★ Itcha Ilgachuz Provincial Park

★ Tweedsmuir South Provincial Park

External links

★ Skiing the Pacific Ring of Fire and Beyond

★ National Resources of Canada