Portal:Mountains

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Introduction

View of the south side of the Santa Catalina Mountains as seen from Tucson, Arizona.

A mountain is an elevated portion of the Earth's crust, generally with steep sides that show significant exposed bedrock. Although definitions vary, a mountain may differ from a plateau in having a limited summit area, and is usually higher than a hill, typically rising at least 300 metres (980 ft) above the surrounding land. A few mountains are isolated summits, but most occur in mountain ranges.

Mountains are formed through tectonic forces, erosion, or volcanism, which act on time scales of up to tens of millions of years. Once mountain building ceases, mountains are slowly leveled through the action of weathering, through slumping and other forms of mass wasting, as well as through erosion by rivers and glaciers.

High elevations on mountains produce colder climates than at sea level at similar latitude. These colder climates strongly affect the ecosystems of mountains: different elevations have different plants and animals. Because of the less hospitable terrain and climate, mountains tend to be used less for agriculture and more for resource extraction, such as mining and logging, along with recreation, such as mountain climbing and skiing.

The highest mountain on Earth is Mount Everest in the Himalayas of Asia, whose summit is 8,850 m (29,035 ft) above mean sea level. The highest known mountain on any planet in the Solar System is Olympus Mons on Mars at 21,171 m (69,459 ft). (Full article...)

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Selected mountain-related landform

An inselberg or monadnock (/məˈnædnɒk/ mə-NAD-nok) is an isolated rock hill, knob, ridge, or small mountain that rises abruptly from a gently sloping or virtually level surrounding plain. In Southern Africa a similar formation of granite is known as a koppie, an Afrikaans word ("little head") from the Dutch diminutive word kopje. If the inselberg is dome-shaped and formed from granite or gneiss, it can also be called a bornhardt, though not all bornhardts are inselbergs. An inselberg results when a body of rock resistant to erosion, such as granite, occurring within a body of softer rocks, is exposed by differential erosion and lowering of the surrounding landscape. (Full article...)

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Selected mountain range

The Niut Range is 3600 km² (c. 1390 sq mi) in area. It is a subrange of the Pacific Ranges of the Coast Mountains of British Columbia, although in some classifications it is considered part of the Chilcotin Ranges (which in some classifications are themselves part of the Pacific Ranges). The Niut is located in the angle of the Homathko River and its main west fork, Mosley Creek. It is isolated, island-like, by those rivers from its neighbour ranges, as both streams have their source on the Chilcotin Plateau in behind the range. Razorback Mountain is its highest peak.

Northwest across Mosley Creek is the Pantheon Range and due west is the Waddington Range and south of that is the Whitemantle Range; further northwest is the Klinaklini Icefield, beyond the river of the same name. To the southeast across the great Grand Canyon of the Homathko is the Homathko Icefield, east of which beyond the area of Mount Queen Bess is Tsy'los Provincial Park. (Full article...)

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Selected mountain type

Fault blocks are very large blocks of rock, sometimes hundreds of kilometres in extent, created by tectonic and localized stresses in Earth's crust. Large areas of bedrock are broken up into blocks by faults. Blocks are characterized by relatively uniform lithology. The largest of these fault blocks are called crustal blocks. Large crustal blocks broken off from tectonic plates are called terranes. Those terranes which are the full thickness of the lithosphere are called microplates. Continent-sized blocks are called variously microcontinents, continental ribbons, H-blocks, extensional allochthons and outer highs.

Because most stresses relate to the tectonic activity of moving plates, most motion between blocks is horizontal, that is parallel to the Earth's crust by strike-slip faults. However vertical movement of blocks produces much more dramatic results. Landforms (mountains, hills, ridges, lakes, valleys, etc.) are sometimes formed when the faults have a large vertical displacement. Adjacent raised blocks (horsts) and down-dropped blocks (grabens) can form high escarpments. Often the movement of these blocks is accompanied by tilting, due to compaction or stretching of the crust at that point. (Full article...)

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Selected climbing article

In the mountaineering parlance of the Western United States, a fourteener is a mountain peak with an elevation of at least 14,000 ft (4267 m). The 96 fourteeners in the United States are all west of the Mississippi River. Colorado has the most (53) of any single state; Alaska is second with 29. Many peak baggers try to climb all fourteeners in the contiguous United States, one particular state, or another region. (Full article...)

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General images

The following are images from various mountain-related articles on Wikipedia.

Image 1Pirin Mountain, Bulgaria, part of the fault-block Rila-Rhodope massif (from Mountain)
Image 2Everest is highest from sea level (green), Mauna Kea is highest from its base (orange), Cayambe is farthest from Earth's axis (pink) and Chimborazo is farthest from Earth's centre (blue) (from Mountain)
Image 3Fixed lines and ladders are distinguishing characteristics of expedition style mountaineering (from Mountaineering)
Image 4This 1848 "Sketch showing the actual elevation of the Snow Line in different Latitudes" by Alexander Keith Johnston shows the snow lines of mountains in America, Europe and Asia (from Snow line)
Image 5An alpine mire in the Swiss Alps (from Mountain)
Image 6Antique climbing tools (from Mountaineering)
Image 7British mountaineer William Cecil Slingsby became known as the father of Norwegian mountaineering and contributed greatly to its popularization with his classic book Norway, the Northern Playground (from Mountaineering)
Image 8Mountaineers climbing in South Tyrol (from Mountain)
Image 9Tropical montane forest at around 2,000 m in Malaysia (from Montane ecosystems)
Image 10Mountain rescue team members and other services attend to a casualty in Freiburg Germany. (from Mountain rescue)
Image 11A mountain rescue team in Iran moving a casualty. (from Mountain rescue)
Image 12Fuji volcano (from Mountain)
Image 13The Catskills in Upstate New York represent an eroded plateau. (from Mountain)
Image 14Climber approaching the summit of Manaslu at 8,163 metres (from Mountaineering)
Image 15Choppering out the injured – with Mt. Forbes in the background (from Mountain rescue)
Image 16Waimea Canyon, Hawaii, is known for its montane vegetation. (from Montane ecosystems)
Image 17A stand of mountain birch at around 750 m in Trollheimen, typical of Scandinavian subalpine forests (from Montane ecosystems)
Image 18The city of La Paz reaches up to 4,000 metres (13,000 ft) in elevation. (from Mountain)
Image 19The Andes, the longest mountain range on the surface of the Earth, have a dramatic impact on the climate of South America (from Mountain range)
Image 20Climbers ascending Mount Rainier looking at Little Tahoma Peak (from Mountaineering)
Image 21Iranian oak scrub in the Zagros Mountains (from Montane ecosystems)
Image 22Cabane du Trient, a mountain hut in the Swiss Alps (from Mountaineering)
Image 23Mountaineers proceed across snow fields on South Tyrol; other climbers are visible further up the slopes. (from Mountaineering)
Image 24Temperate montane forest in Bavaria, Germany (from Montane ecosystems)
Image 25Mount Everest, Earth's highest mountain (from Mountain)
Image 26The Namcha Barwa Himal, east part of the Himalayas as seen from space by Apollo 9 (from Mountain range)
Image 27The Ocean Ridge, the world's longest mountain range (chain) (from Mountain range)
Image 28Mountaineers, c. 1900 (from Mountaineering)
Image 29A subalpine lake in the Cascade Range, Washington, United States (from Montane ecosystems)
Image 30The northern Urals at high latitude and elevation have an alpine climate and barren ground. (from Mountain)
Image 31Illustration of mountains that developed on a fold that has been thrust (from Mountain)
Image 32Winter campers bivouaced in the snow (from Mountaineering)
Image 33Alpine landscape below Malyovitsa Peak, Rila Mountain, Bulgaria (from Montane ecosystems)
Image 34Edward Whymper (1840–1911), painting by Lance Calkin (from Mountaineering)
Image 35Chimborazo, Ecuador, whose summit is the point farthest away from the Earth's center (from Mountain)
Image 36Montes Apenninus on the Moon was formed by an impact event. (from Mountain range)
Image 37Car of Horská služba (Czech Republic) (from Mountain rescue)
Image 38Alpine flora near Cascade Pass (from Montane ecosystems)
Image 39Stretcher box in Cumbria, England, prepositioned equipment saves mountain rescue teams having to trudge up mountains with it. (from Mountain rescue)
Image 40Edelweiss, a plant associated with mountain sports (from Mountaineering)

Selected skiing article

The physics of skiing refers to the analysis of the forces acting on a person while skiing. The motion of a skier is determined by the physical principles of the conservation of energy and the frictional forces acting on the body. For example, in downhill skiing, as the skier is accelerated down the hill by the force of gravity, their gravitational potential energy is converted to kinetic energy, the energy of motion. In the ideal case, all of the potential energy would be converted into kinetic energy; in reality, some of the energy is lost to heat due to friction. (Full article...)

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