Mountain Ranges
A mountain range is a place where there are many mountains, usually in a rough line. But they are certainly not regularly arranged but usually mixed and broken, with a variety of rock types.
But why do we even have mountains? The answer is that they are a result of the movement of the pieces of the earth’s outer layer. These pieces move slowly, hitting each other, pushing some parts up, other parts down, and sometimes creating volcanoes. These volcanoes can grow higher, forming their own mountains. This has happened a lot around the Pacific ‘Ring of Fire’.
The longest mountain range in the world is the Andes in South America, at 7,000 kilometres, but it is the Himalayas in Central Asia which contain the highest mountains, including Mount Everest, highest of them all. [See the above picture].
Although high mountains look wonderful in photographs, they are not particularly nice places. The weather on mountains becomes colder as you go higher. The air gets thinner, and there is less greenhouse effect holding in the heat. For this reason, the highest mountains have snow, sometimes all the time, and many important rivers in the world begin from the melting snows in higher mountain ranges.
With such cold weather, and the unpredictable weather, people usually avoid living on mountains. Another reason is that the ground is not flat, which makes it difficult to grow food or raise animals. However, in recent times, tourism has become important to many villages in the higher mountains.
For the really high mountains, the activity of mountain climbing helps generate income for the local people who live there. Climbers feel that getting to the top of a really high mountain is a very special achievement, despite the dangers of extreme weather, low oxygen levels, and falling from the steep mountain slope.
Personally, I don’t intend to ever go that high, but I agree that these mountains certainly look beautiful, from a safe distance, right.
Question Time
- How are mountains formed? …………………………………………………….…….……
- What is the world’s longest mountain range? ………………….………………………….
- Why does it get colder as you go higher? …………………………………..…….……….
- Why don’t people like living on mountains? ……………………………………………….
- Why is raising animals difficult on mountains? ……………………………………………
Word-Learning Time
Do you know the meaning of the underlined words?
Regular
Volcano
Greenhouse
To melt
To be unpredictable
Extreme
To be steep
A slope
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