Portal:Mountains

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Introduction

Silvretta panorama from the Ochsenkopf

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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A kame, or knob, is a glacial landform, an irregularly shaped hill or mound composed of sand, gravel and till that accumulates in a depression on a retreating glacier, and is then deposited on the land surface with further melting of the glacier. Kames are often associated with kettles, and this is referred to as kame and kettle or knob and kettle topography. The word kame is a variant of comb (kame, or kaim is the Old Scottish word for comb), which has the meaning "crest" among others. The geological term was introduced by Thomas Jamieson in 1874.

According to White, "kames were formed by meltwater which deposited more or less washed material at irregular places in and along melting ice. At places the material is very well washed and stratified; at others it is more poorly washed, with inclusions of till masses that fell from ice but were covered before they were completely washed. Kame gravels thus tend to be variable and range from fine to coarse grained and even to cobbly and boulder." (Full article...)

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Sawtooth Range; in front: Slidre Fiord and Fosheim Peninsula

The Sawtooth Range is a jagged snow-capped mountain range on central Ellesmere Island, Nunavut, Canada. It lies between the Fosheim Peninsula and the Wolf Valley. The Sawtooth Range is a subrange of the Arctic Cordillera. It also runs through a Canadian Forces Station, called Eureka, a base used to study atmospheric changes. (Full article...)

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In geology and geomorphology, a hogback or hog's back is a long, narrow ridge or a series of hills with a narrow crest and steep slopes of nearly equal inclination on both flanks. Typically, the term is restricted to a ridge created by the differential erosion of outcropping, steeply dipping (greater than 30–40°), homoclinal, and typically sedimentary strata. One side of a hogback (its backslope) consists of the surface (bedding plane) of a steeply dipping rock stratum called a dip slope. The other side (its escarpment, frontslope or "scarp slope") is an erosion face that cuts through the dipping strata that comprises the hogback. The name "hogback" comes from the Hog's Back of the North Downs in Surrey, England, which refers to the landform's resemblance in outline to the back of a hog. The term is also sometimes applied to drumlins and, in Maine, to both eskers and ridges known as "horsebacks".

Hogbacks are a typical regional topographic expression of outcrops of steeply dipping strata, commonly sedimentary strata, that consist of alternating beds of hard, well-lithified strata, i.e. sandstone and limestone, and either weak or loosely cemented strata, i.e. shale, mudstone, and marl. The surface of a hard, erosion-resistant layer forms the back slope (dip-slope) of the hogback where weaker strata have been preferentially stripped off of it by erosion. The opposite slope that forms the front of a hogback, which is its escarpment or scarp, consists of a slope that cuts across the bedding of the strata. Because of the steeply dipping nature of the strata that forms a hogback, a slight shift in location may take place as the landscape is lowered by erosion, but it will be a matter of feet rather than miles, as might happen with cuestas. (Full article...)

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Selected climbing article

Exposure is a climbing and hiking term. Sections of a hiking path or climbing route are described as "exposed" if there is a high risk of injury in the event of a fall because of the steepness of the terrain. If such routes are negotiated without any protection, a false step can result in a serious fall. The negotiation of such routes can cause fear of falling because of the potential danger. (Full article...)

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General images

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

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

Selected skiing article

Injury is physiological damage to the living tissue of any organism, whether in humans, in other animals, or in plants.

Injuries can be caused in many ways, such as mechanically with penetration by sharp objects such as teeth or with blunt objects, by heat or cold, or by venoms and biotoxins. Injury prompts an inflammatory response in many taxa of animals; this prompts wound healing. In both plants and animals, substances are often released to help to occlude the wound, limiting loss of fluids and the entry of pathogens such as bacteria. Many organisms secrete antimicrobial chemicals which limit wound infection; in addition, animals have a variety of immune responses for the same purpose. Both plants and animals have regrowth mechanisms which may result in complete or partial healing over the injury. Cells too can repair damage to a certain degree. (Full article...)