 The mountains are typical of the rolling terrain of the piedmont region of North Carolina, and are somewhat similar in formation to the nearby Caraway Mountains and Uwharrie Mountains.The Cane Creek Mountains may have formed as a part of the larger coastal range that was once the Uwharries, which are thought to have formed as a part of the Alleghenian or Appalachian orogeny 300–350 million years ago during the formation and rifting of Pangaea.This earlier range is thought to have had peaks more than high, which would rival the Himalayas, the Andes, and the Alaska Range.