Facts about Mountains

In Europe, mountainous areas are considered being elevated over 500 meters above sea level.

Those are erosion, tectonic forces or volcanism. There are also three main types of mountains: fault-block, fold and volcanic.

The term originates from Ancient Greek where óros meant “mountain” and génesis meant “creation”.

They are formed by folding layers of upmost part of the Earth’s crust. They usually form where two tectonic plates move towards each other.

About 50 million years ago, the process of uplifting the Himalayas began. The Indian plate pushed against the Eurasian plate, causing the uplift of rock masses at their junction.

It is estimated that the escalation of this process occurred about 20 million years ago.

There are only fourteen such peaks on Earth and ten of them are located in the Himalayas.

Those lines are called faults.

Most known mountains of this type are Sierra Nevada in California, the Tetons in Wyoming and Harz in Germany.

Most mountainous continent is Eurasia (33%). Second place goes to North America with 24% of the area covered by mountains. In the third place is South America (19%), followed by Africa (14%). Only 6% of Australia is mountainous.

They are called mountain people and make up about 12% of Earth’s population.

Its average height is 4150 meters above the mean sea level. El Alto is one of the fastest-growing cities in Bolivia with over 940 thousand citizens.

There are several versions of which summits account, but we can consider Mount Everest (Asia), Aconcagua (South America), Denali (North America), Kilimanjaro (Africa), Vinson Massif (Antarctica), Mount Kosciuszko (Australia).

Mount Everest is 8,848 meters high. The border between China and Nepal runs through its summit point.

It is situated on the island of New Guinea and measures 4884 meters high.

It is a dormant volcano in the Andes on the Argentina-Chile border.

The volcano is 6893 meters high and is listed on Volcanic Seven Summits. Last eruption of this giant occurred about 1270 years ago.

They are situated in South America and span over 8,900 kilometers (5530 miles) through seven countries: Argentina, Bolivia, Chile, Colombia, Ecuador, Peru and Venezuela.

Andean Mountains are also the highest mountain range outside Asia.

Longest mountain range on Earth is called Mid-ocean ridge and has about 65,000 km (40,000 mi) length.

They are common features of most planets and moons. Some of them outshine the Earth’s highest peaks in size.

The peak towers over the surface of Mars and its height is more than 21.9 kilometers. It is a mountain of volcanic origin, whose activity has not yet ceased.