Today is International Mountain Day. Here are ten fascinating facts about mountains:
- How do you define a mountain? There is no generally accepted definition. It varies between regions with some saying a hill must be 1,000ft high, others say 2,000ft. Most geologists, however, classify a mountain as a landform that rises at least 1,000 feet (300 meters) or more above its surrounding area.
- In Britain, especially Scotland, mountains and hills above certain heights are classified into named categories. A Munro is a mountain in Scotland over 3,000 feet (914.4 m).The name comes from Sir Hugh Munro who first compiled a list of them in 1891. There are 282 of them. Peaks between 2,500 and 3,000 feet (762.0 and 914.4 m) with a prominence of at least 500 feet (152.4 m). are called Corbetts after John Rooke Corbett, who compiled the list in the 1920s. There are 222 Corbetts. Climbers who climb all of the Corbetts are called Corbetteers; the first being Corbett himself who completed the task in 1943. Grahams are between 2,000 and 2,499 feet (610 and 762 metres) high, with a drop of at least 150 metres (490 feet) all round. People who manage to climb all of those are called Grahamists. Donalds are mountains in the Scottish Lowlands over 2,000 ft (610 m), of which there are 140. These are named for Percy Donald, who compiled the list in 1935.
- Mountains in the rest of Britain or Ireland that would qualify as Munros are called Furths. Mountains and hills over 150 metres high are called Marilyns, which came from the English having a bit of a joke with regard to the Scottish Munros. Other classifications include Nuttalls, Hewitts and Birketts (Lake District).
- Mountain definition was the theme of a 1995 film starring Hugh Grant, called The Englishman who Went up a Hill but Came down a Mountain. It’s about the residents of a proud Welsh village who welcome some English cartographers who come to measure their local hill to determine if it qualifies as a mountain. It doesn’t – it falls a few feet short. The residents of the village conspire to build a mound on the summit to make it higher, so it can be called a mountain.
- How were mountains made? There seem to be two main origins. One is plate tectonics, where the Earth’s crust moved and parts of it collided with other parts, forcing rock upwards similar to the way metal buckles in a car crash. The other is volcanic activity.
- Most people, when asked what the world’s tallest mountain is will say Mount Everest, although it actually depends on how the height is measured. The height of mountains is usually measured from sea level, in which case Mount Everest, at 29,035 feet (8,850 meters) is indeed the highest. However, if the height is measured from the base of the mountain, which can be underwater, which would make Mauna Kea in Hawaii, at 33,474 feet (10,203 meters) the world’s highest mountain, 4,000ft taller than Everest. If you take it as the distance the summit is from the centre of the Earth, the answer is different again – it’s Mount Chimborazo in Ecuador.
- The highest mountain known to man isn’t on Earth at all, but on Mars. Olympus Mons is said to be three times the size of Mount Everest. The highest mountain on the Moon is Mons Huygens, thought to be about 15,000 feet tall. Mountains on Venus are snow-capped in metal. Dr Paul Schenk of the Lunar and Planetary Institute in Houston, Texas has studied mountains on Enceladus, one of Saturn’s moons. The mountains there are covered in fine ice crystals, making Dr. Schenk conclude that Enceladus would be the best place to go for an extra-terrestrial Ski trip.
- There are also mountains under the sea which do not break the surface. They are called seamounts. The Earth's oceans contain more than 14,500 identified seamounts, few of which have been studied in detail, and scientists estimate that there could be as many as 100,000 more in areas which have not been mapped.
- About a fifth of the land on the planet is covered in mountains. About 10% of the world’s population lives in mountainous areas. This includes La Rinconada in Peru, the highest permanent settlement in the world, where about 50,000 people live at an elevation of 5,052 metres. 80% of the fresh Water we drink originates in mountain peaks.
- Some mountains are sacred to various religions around the world. Mount Olympos in Greece, Munt Fuji in Japan, Mount Brandon in Ireland and Nanda Devi in the Himalayas are examples. Some, like Mount Brandon, become centres of pilgrimage with people climbing to the summit as a religious task, while others, like Nanda Devi, are considered so sacred that people are forbidden to climb it at all.
See also: quotes about Mountains
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