Mountains

Mountains & Hills ➢ areas of high ground

Mountain ➢ rises 300 meters above the land
Hill ➢ rises less than 300 meters

Topographic Maps & Relief Maps

Topographic maps: show the natural features of the land, such as hills, mountains,
lakes and rivers, things made by people, such as roads & towns.
Atlases ➢ map book

Relief maps: show how high the different parts of a region, country or a continent
are.

➢On both maps, height of land is show different colours, brown & green.
➢All land area of the same height above sea level are given the same colour.
➢Heights & depths on a map are measured above & below the average level of
the sea.

Contour lines: are lines joining places that are the same height above sea level.
They do not cross each other. [a line drawn on a topographic map to indicate
ground elevation or dimension.]

Map scale: refers to the relationship (or ratio) between distance on a map & the
corresponding distance on the ground.
Example ➢ 1: 100000 scale maps ➢ 1cm on map = 1km on ground

Map scales & Contour lines

Differences in height, or interval, shown by contour lines depend on the scale of

the map.
Small scale map: representation of large areas like countries oceans, and
continents, they show like mountains, plateaus, continents & countries.

Scale ➢ 1cm – 100km (Atlas/wall map)

Large scale map: representation of small areas, village, or towns, Details of cities,
towns & villages are shown.
Scale ➢ 1cm = 50 m or 1km (Topographic map)
On small-scale map ➢ in an atlas, the contour lines may be at intervals or 1000 or
2000 m.
On large-scale map ➢ contour lines may be at intervals of 10m or less.
 Contour lines tell us about the slope of the land
 Gentle slope ➢ contour lines are close together
 Steep slope ➢ contour lines are far apart
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A few mountains stand alone, Fujiyama in Japan, Mount Taranaki in New

Zealand, & Mount Kenya in Africa.

Mountain ranges ➢ mountains are found in long chains, Alps, Andes, Himalayas,
Sarwat & Rocky Mountains.

How volcanos are formed

The Earth is made up of layers of rock.

Solid outside layer of rock ➢ Earth’s crust
➢Mantle
Beneath the crust
Near the top of melted, some of the rocks are so hot they they have melted to form
thick liquid. All rocks around the mantle press down on it, molten rock is under great
pressure. If there is a weak point in Earth’s crust, molten rock bursts through & out on
surface, forming volcano.

Fold mountains

Earth’s crust is made up of large pieces, called plates. Plates move slowly, floating on
the molten rock of mantle below them. Where two plates push against each other the
Earth’s crust is slowly pushed up in folds or ridges, which form fold mountains.
Example ➢ (The rocks in the sea between Asia & India were gradually pushed up into
folds that now form the Himalayas Mountain range) Alps, Rockies, Andes & Urals
➢fold mountains

Faults & Block mountains

Some plates are moving apart. As the rocks move apart, they often, & create breaks
called faults.
Large blocks of rock are pushed up between 2 faults. These blocks may be so large &
high ➢ block mountain is called a plateau. (highland area of East Africa)

Mountains & Weather

Mountains ➢ the higher you go, the colder it gets. The temperature falls by about 2
degrees Celsius for 300 meters you climb. If you climb high, you will reach the snow
line. Above this height, snow covers the ground even in summer. ➢ Why there is
snow on the tops of very high mountains near the Equator.

Snow line ➢ the boundary between a snow-covered and snow-free surface.

What is Rain Shadow?

Clouds ➢ made up of tiny water droplets.

Windward side ➢ the rain or snow falls on only one side of the mountain.

Leeward side ➢ the other side of the mountain, which receives much less rain or
snow.

Rain shadow ➢ On one side of mountain, wet weather systems, drop rain and snow.
On other side, the rain shadow side that precipitation is blocked. A patch of land that
has been forced to become a desert because mountain ranges blocked all plant
growing.

Mountain weather & land use

The sun affects different sides of a mountain. One side in sunshine & other in shadow.
Cold air is heavier than warm air, it tends to sink into valleys.
On lower slopes of mountain ➢ orchards of fruit trees are planted (not in the bottom
of valley) Villages are built on lower slopes of a mountain than in colder valley
bottom.

Weathering:

Ice ➢ Rocks have tiny cracks. When rain falls or dew forms, water gets in the cracks.
If it gets very cold, the water freeze to form ice.

Water ➢ Rainwater is a weak acid & it gradually as hot big difference in temperature
between day and night weakens the rocks. Over time rocks break up into small pieces
that slide down the side of the mountain.

Changes in temperature ➢ In hot, dry places, such as hot big difference in temperature
between day and night weakens the rocks. Over time rocks break up into smaller
pieces that slide down the sides of the mountain.

Plant roots ➢ In addition to weathering, plant roots can grow into the cracks in rocks.
As the roots grow bigger, cracks open & pieces of rock break off.
Scree ➢ The pieces of rock formed by weathering may form a loose back of
fragments, called scree, near the bottom of a mountain.

The Himalayas (include highest mountain)

Mountain ranges
curve in a large area of 25000km
across Asia from Pakistan in the west to China in the earth
cover an area of nearly 600000 square km
include parts of Pakistan, India, Nepal, Blautan & China

Formation & Features

Young fold mountains

Form about 38 million years ago like all young mountain ranges
Have jagged peaks
Upper parts are always covered with ice & snow

The higher you go about the Earth, the less air there is. High in the Himalayas there is
so little air that most climbers can only breathe with the help of bottles of oxygen.

Climate & land use

The lower slopes have milder climate than upper slopes and soil is fertile and well
drained. Its cutes terraces into the slopes.

Grow fruit, trees, tea, potatoes, wheat, maize, rice & sugar cane

Raise sheep, goats, and yaks on the slopes.

In summer ➢ farmers take animals up to the high pastures to

In autumn ➢ they bring them back down to valleys

Roads & railways ➢ high mountains make it difficult to built

Minerals & rivers

 Valuable minerals & gemstones, iron ore & coal

 19 large rivers drain the Himalayas including the Indus & Brahmaputra.
/Provide water for people, water & fertile silt for crops in India, Pakistan &
Bangladesh/rivers have been dammed to provide hydroelectric power.
Forests & flooding

About one third of the tower sloped are covered with forest
In Nepal, India & Bangladesh ➢ trees on lower slopes ➢ cute down ➢ to make new
fields & to provide firewood

Tree ➢ used to make paper, matches & other products

Tree roots ➢ act like a sponge, soaking up rainwater & release
Flooding: when it rains, the rivers overflow & serious flooding in valleys & plain, the
thin soil on the steeper slopes is washed away & the terraces & villages are swept
away:
To stop flooding, more trees are being planted

The Andes

➢The Formation & features

 The Atacama Desert in Chile (one of the driest places)

 Lake Titicaca (between Peru & Bolovia) largest lake in South America
 The source of the River Amazon (largest river)

 Fold mountains ➢ formed when Earth’s plate that carries the Pacific Ocean
pushed into the plate carrying the South America continent.

 Jagged peaks ➢ more then ➢ 6700m high ➢ covering of snow even those at
the Equator

 Frequent earthquakes & eruptions from 183 active volcanoes, including the
highest volcano on Earth, Ojos del Salado in Chile ➢ 6887m tall

People

 Not easy to live in the Andes/ because of high altitude ➢ there is little air &
less oxygen than at lower level
 The soil is poor/ stoop slopes make farming difficult/ difficult to build roads &
railways.
 The people who live on plateaux are able to survive in the thin air because they
have extra-large lungs.

Farming
  The best land for farming ➢ valley bottoms
 Terraces dug into valley side & held up by stone walls are used to grow crops
on the lower slopes
 The main crop ➢ potato
 Other crops ➢ soya, maize, rice & cotton

Llamas ➢ the most important animals

Used to carry loads

&
Relatives of Provide meat, milk
& wool
the camel

Alpacas ➢Mineral
look like small llamas ➢kept for their meat & wool

 Large number of metals & minerals, gold, silver, tin, copper & aluminium
 Phosphates & nitrate ➢ used as fertilisers

Yanacocha gold mine in Peru ➢ largest gold mine in South America second
largest gold mine in the world
 Rocks containing the gold are blasted with dynamite. The rock is then sprayed
with cyanide. The cyanide washed the gold out of the rock so it can be
collected.