World

Mountains of the World

There are a staggering variety of mountains on the planet Earth, and any quick summary is likely to be almost useless. However, one interesting way to look at world's ranges is that most of them form a semi-continuous chain similar to the seam on a baseball, winding around across continents and oceans.

Starting at the Atlas Mountains of North Africa, this large mountainous area encompasses the mountains of Spain, the Pyrenees, the Alps, the Carpathians, and then the Balkan Ranges before crossing into Asia as the mountains of Turkey, the Caucasus, the Zagros, and the Elburz. Moving out of Iran, the master chain becomes the great central Asian complex that includes the Karakoram, Hindu Kush, and Himalaya. Mountainous terrain then continues northeastwards across China and Siberia to the Bering Strait, where the Aleutian and Alaska Ranges then merge into the great cordilleras of western North America, such as the Rockies, Coast Mountains, Cascade Range, and Sierra Nevada. The spine of high mountains running south through Mexico and Central America is well-known, as are the great uninterrupted wall of the Andes. The mountains then cross to Antarctica as the ranges of the Antarctic Peninsula and the Transantarctic Mountains, ending at the north coast of Victoria Land.

From this huge but indistinct master chain there are two huge offshoots to the south: one starting in the eastern Mediterranean and following the great Rift Valley and Ethiopian Highlands to the Drakensberg of South Africa; the other originiaing at the east end of the Himalaya and winding down through Southeast Asia, Indonesia, and the Great Dividing Range of Australia.

This extremely over-simplified scheme of great range systems is kind of silly, but it does includes major mountain systems on all continents and emphasizes the global continutity of the mountains and the tectonic plate boundaries that often form them.

Mountain Heights on Earth

There are only 14 peaks over 8000 meters high, all in the Himalaya or Karakoram Ranges of Asia. In addition, all 7000 meter peaks in the world are located in those ranges and others in the great Central Asian complex--the Pamir, Tien Shan, Hindu Kush, Kunlun, and other ranges. Outside of this area, 6000 meter peaks of the world are found only in the Andes (including Aconcagua at 6960 meters) and at Denali in Alaska. Lowering the bar to 5000 meters, we find peaks in the Caucasus area, Elburz range of Iran, St. Elias Range, Central Mexico, East Africa, and New Guinea, plus countless lower peaks in the higher ranges.