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Introduction

Silvretta panorama from the Ochsenkopf
Silvretta panorama from the Ochsenkopf
Mount Everest, Earth's highest mountain

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...)

Selected mountain-related landform

Pietra di Bismantova in the Apennines, Italy

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...)

Selected mountain range

The Granite Mountains in Wyoming

The Granite Mountains are a short subrange of the Rocky Mountains in central Wyoming of the United States. The range runs approximately 100 mi (160 km) E-W along the south side of the Shoshone Basin, and north of the Sweetwater River, in eastern Fremont County and western Natrona County. The highest point is McIntosh Peak at 8,058 feet (2,456 m). Independence Rock is at the east end of the range, and Split Rock was a prominent landmark on the Oregon Trail. The region is rich in uranium and other mineral deposits. (Full article...)

Selected mountain type

Grave Creek Mound, in Moundsville, West Virginia

A mound is a heaped pile of earth, gravel, sand, rocks, or debris. Most commonly, mounds are earthen formations such as hills and mountains, particularly if they appear artificial. A mound may be any rounded area of topographically higher elevation on any surface. Artificial mounds have been created for a variety of reasons throughout history, including habitation (see Tell and Terp), ceremonial (platform mound), burial (tumulus), and commemorative purposes (e.g. Kościuszko Mound). (Full article...)

Selected climbing article

Climbing is a major US-based rock climbing magazine first published in 1970. In 2007, it was bought by Skram Media, the publisher of Urban Climber Magazine. The headquarters of the magazine is in Boulder, Colorado. It is published nine times a year. Climbing was purchased by Outside in 2021. (Full article...)

Related portals

General images

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

Selected skiing article

An ice block, photographed at the Duluth Canal Park in Minnesota

Ice is water that is frozen into a solid state, typically forming at or below temperatures of 0 °C, 32 °F, or 273.15 K. It occurs naturally on Earth, on other planets, in Oort cloud objects, and as interstellar ice. As a naturally occurring crystalline inorganic solid with an ordered structure, ice is considered to be a mineral. Depending on the presence of impurities such as particles of soil or bubbles of air, it can appear transparent or a more or less opaque bluish-white color.

Virtually all of the ice on Earth is of a hexagonal crystalline structure denoted as ice Ih (spoken as "ice one h"). Depending on temperature and pressure, at least nineteen phases (packing geometries) can exist. The most common phase transition to ice Ih occurs when liquid water is cooled below °C (273.15 K, 32 °F) at standard atmospheric pressure. When water is cooled rapidly (quenching), up to three types of amorphous ice can form. Interstellar ice is overwhelmingly low-density amorphous ice (LDA), which likely makes LDA ice the most abundant type in the universe. When cooled slowly, correlated proton tunneling occurs below −253.15 °C (20 K, −423.67 °F) giving rise to macroscopic quantum phenomena. (Full article...)

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Topics

NASA Landsat-7 imagery of Himalayas
NASA Landsat-7 imagery of Himalayas
Shivling
Shivling
Eruption of Pinatubo 1991

Flora and fauna

Climbing in Greece
Climbing in Greece

Lists of mountains

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