Carolina Curious: How were the Sauratown Mountains formed?

While the Triad area is part of the foothills, we do have a mountain range we can call our own. It includes the landmark Pilot Knob.

For this week's Carolina Curious, WFDD's Paul Garber was wondering: How did the Sauratown Mountains form here, and what sets them apart?

Pilot Mountain State Park Superintendent Jason Anthony knows it can be weird for visitors when they first see Pilot’s famous dome in the chain of peaks sometimes called “the mountains away from the mountains.”

“People don’t expect it when they’re coming up Highway 52 if they’ve never been here before," he says. "They just see this thing coming out. 'What is this?'”

Anthony says there are various theories on the origins of these mountains, but the idea is that they began beneath a vast ocean that eventually flowed into the Atlantic. 

"Layers of sediment were deposited underneath the water, and as the waters receded, the mountains were pushed up through plate tectonics and continental continents coming together and moving apart," he says. "The Sauratown mountain range shot up and has slowly eroded away over the centuries, and what was left was the exposed quartzite rock that forms the dome of Pilot Mountain.”

Anthony says the Sauratown Mountains are old, possibly predating the Appalachians, and are mere remnants of what was once there. 

"I’ve heard they used to be about 10 times the size that they are now," he says. "The tallest mountain in the Sauratown range is Moore's Knob at Hanging Rock State Park. And that's over 2,500 feet. Pilot Mountain’s a little over 2,400 feet.”

For comparison, Mount Mitchell in Yancey County, the highest point east of the Mississippi, is over 6,600 feet tall.

Geologically speaking, the knobs of the Sauratowns, such as the one on Pilot Mountain, are known as monadnocks.

Anthony says they’re erosion-resistant but not erosion-proof. Eventually, they’ll wear down too. But not during our lifetimes.

What does remain though, is a place of extraordinary biodiversity, Anthony says.

"You can see all these different ecosystems within a short hike, relatively, four or five miles.”

Others have noted the same. Natural history writer Michael A. Godfrey has called Moore’s Wall on Hanging Rock the “wildest, most spectacular place in the Piedmont.” The steep, craggy cliffs are a wonderland for birds, including ravens, hawks and woodpeckers.