Mountains are a common sight on this planet. They make up one-fifth of the world's landscape, and provide homes to at least one-tenth of the world's people. Furthermore, 2 billion people depend on mountain ecosystems for most of their food, hydroelectricity, timber, and minerals. About 80 per cent of our planet's fresh water originates in the mountains. Since about half of the world's people are reliant upon mountains for fresh water, and in this time of increasing water scarcity, it is becoming increasingly important to protect the mountain biome. All mountain ecosystems have one major characteristic in common--rapid changes in altitude, climate, soil, and vegetation over very short distances. Mountain ecosystems sport a high range of biodiversity, and are also a home to many of our planet's ethnic minorities. These cultures are sometimes 'protected' due to the challenging environment to produce a living, but others are not. More and more these indigenous people are being kicked out of their homes due to population and commercial growth, logging, and mining. An example of the mountain's wide variety of organisms can be seen in California's Sierra Nevada range
A mountain is a large landform that stretches above the surrounding land in a limited area usually in the form of a peak. A mountain is generally steeper than a hill. Mountains are formed through tectonic forces or volcanism. These forces can locally raise the surface of the earth by over 10,000 feet (3,000 m). Mountains erode slowly through the action of rivers, weather conditions, and glaciers. A few mountains are isolated summits, but most occur in huge mountain ranges.High elevations on mountains produce colder climates than at sea level. These colder climates strongly affect the ecosystem 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 and recreation, such as mountain climbing.
The highest mountain on Earth is Mount Everest in the Himalayas of Asia, whose summit is 8,848 m (29,029 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).The world's mountains provide a home to several thousand different ethnic groups. The mountain people, which mainly consist of indigenous people, ethnic minorities, and refugees, have been able to cope with this harsh environment of the mountain ecosystem. They live as nomads, hunters, foragers, traders, small farmers, loggers, and miners, etc. Most mountain people all share one attribute -- material poverty. However, what they lack in material wealth they make up in community life. They have been able to live off the land without widespread destruction and deforestation. Plant and animal species have been preserved by these people.
For instance, in India's Garhwal Himalaya, local women were recently successful in identifying over 145 species of plants that had been destroyed by commercial logging and limestone mining; the national foresters could only list 25! Unfortunately, these cultures have been subjected to discrimination and other violations of human rights. They have been called degrading words such as 'hillbillies' (United States), 'oberwalder' (Austria), 'kohestani' (Afghanistan), and 'bhotias' (India). We need to learn not only how to preserve the biological diversity in the mountains, but the cultural diversity also.The Himalayan Yew, a slow-growing conifer, is currently on the World Wildlife Fund's list of the ten most endangered animals. This plant can be found throughout Bhutan, Afghanistan, India, Nepal, Burma, and maybe China. Taxol, which is promising to be a drug which can help cure cancer, is present in both the Pacific and Himalayan varieties. Found in the world's highest mountain range, the Himalayan Yew is extremely rare because of heavy deforestation and harvesting for Taxol extraction, without replanting.
There are three main types of mountains: volcanic, fold, and block. All three types are formed from plate tectonics: when portions of the Earth's crust move, crumple, and dive. Compressional forces, isostatic uplift and intrusion of igneous matter forces surface rock upward, creating a landform higher than the surrounding features. The height of the feature makes it either a hill or, if higher and steeper, a mountain. Major mountains tend to occur in long linear arcs, indicating tectonic plate boundaries and activity.
Volcanoes
Volcanoes are formed when a plate is pushed below another plate, or at a mid-ocean ridge or hotspot. The downward moving plate melts, and forms magma that reaches the surface. When the magma reaches the surface, it often builds a volcanic mountain, such as a shield volcano or a stratovolcano.
Examples of volcanoes include Mount Fuji in Japan and Mount Pinatubo in the Philippines. The magma does not have to reach the surface in order to create a mountain: magma that solidifies below ground can still form dome mountains, such as Navajo Mountain in the United States.
Fold mountains
Fold mountains occur when two plates collide: the continental rocks then crumple together and the surface rises.Since the less dense continental crust "floats" on the denser mantle rocks beneath, the weight of any crustal material forced upward to form hills, plateaus or mountains must be balanced by the buoyancy force of a much greater volume forced downward into the mantle.
Thus the continental crust is normally much thicker under mountains, compared to lower lying areas. Rock can fold either symmetrically or asymmetrically. The upfolds are anticlines and the downfolds are synclines: in asymmetric folding there may also be recumbent and overturned folds. The Jura Mountains are an example of fold mountains.
Block mountains
Block mountains are caused by faults in the crust: a seam where rocks can move past each other. When rocks on one side of a fault rise relative to the other, it can form a mountain.The uplifted blocks are block mountains or horsts. The intervening dropped blocks are termed graben: these can be small or form extensive rift valley systems.
This form of landscape can be seen in East Africa, the Vosges, the Basin and Range province of Western North America and the Rhine valley. These areas often occur when the regional stress is extensional and the crust is thinned.
Commercial industries, especially large mines and hydropower projects, cause exceptional damage in mountains. This is because many companies are ignorant of the fragility of the ecosystems and rights of local communities. The U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) discovered that during the past decade, tropical mountain forests have had both the fastest rates of both annual population growth and deforestation. Somehow, we need to come up with a way to find a compromise between preserving the cultural and biological diversity in mountains, and using them as a valuable resource. After all, if the mountains are exploited until they run dry, there will be no more resources for future generations. Currently, only 8 per cent of all mountains are protected in some form. If our world's highest mountains are able to inspire the greatest of mountain climbers to accomplish great feats, we should provide no lesser commitment to preserving the fragile ecosystems and endangered cultures which lie within them.
