Tepui mesas, South America. Lost world exists in reality

December 22nd, 2013

Do you know what's in the photo? Do you think this is some kind of painted place from a science fiction movie? And here it is not. Now I will tell you. This photo continues the theme of the lost world

It turns out that really lost worlds remained on the planet, where no human has set foot.

In the southeastern part of Venezuela is one of the most amazing places on our planet. Surrounded by savannahs and jungles, an isolated area is reliably hidden from the eyes of people with unique fauna and flora. This territory is known under the name "Tepui", which received from the Indian tribe of the same name, who once lived in these places.

Tepui or tepui (tipui) - mesas located on the Guiana Highlands in South America, for the most part in the territory of Venezuela.

The word "tepui" in the language of the Pemon Indians, who inhabit the area of Gran Sabana, means "house of the gods." Tepui are for the most part isolated from each other, towering above the jungle with hard-to-reach cliffs, which makes them carriers of a unique set of endemic plants and animals.

Scientists say that these mountains, consisting of hard sandstone, with steep, almost sheer slopes and flat, truncated peaks, are the oldest in the world. They were formed as a result of the destruction of a huge plateau, in prehistoric times, stretching from the coast Atlantic Ocean to the borders of the Orinoco, Amazon and Rio Negro river basins. Back in the days when Africa and South America were one, about 200 million years ago, this plateau arose on the site of a giant lake.

The plateau consisted of sandstone and was located on a granite base; over time, erosion turned the plateau into several monadnoks, from which tepui were formed, covered with erosion-resistant rocks.

Similar sinkholes are found on several tepui, they were formed after the rains washed out the vaults of sandstone caves.

The deepest is Abismo Guy Collet Cave, 671 m deep.

By the way, the analysis of water that accumulates in natural lakes on tepui is of excellent quality. As a rule, tepui are composed of a single block of Precambrian sandstone or quartzite, which soars dramatically above the surrounding jungle to altitudes of over 2000 m. Many tepui contain water-washed caves, such as the cave Abismo Guy Collet(Eng. Abismo Guy Collet) with a depth of 671 m, as well as sinkholes up to 300 m in diameter, formed during the collapse of the arches of tunnels of underground rivers.

German explorer Robert Schomburgk visited the area in 1835. He was struck by mesas, but attempts to climb one of them were unsuccessful. It wasn't until nearly half a century later, in 1884, that a British expedition led by Everard Im Turn managed to climb to the top of Mount Roraima.

However, it was the report of the expedition of Robert Schomburgk to the tepui region that inspired the writer Arthur Conan Doyle to write the novel " lost World» about the discovery of a plateau inhabited by prehistoric species of animals and plants. In 1912, the writer read reports about the mountains discovered in South America and was so impressed that he sat down to write a new novel. The plateau described in the book, lost in the jungle, really has much in common with Tepui.

Many tepui contain karst sinkholes up to 300 m in diameter, formed by the collapse of underground river tunnels, as well as water-washed caves, such as the 671 m deep Abismo Guy Collet cave.

Auyantepui is considered the largest of the tepui, and its area is about 700 square meters. km! It is on this plateau that is located, which is the highest waterfall in the world. Angel originates on Mount Auyan and falls into the abyss from a height of 979 meters, and the height of a continuous fall is as much as 807 meters! This waterfall is twice the height of the Empire State Building and three times the Eiffel Tower!

The high fall height - 979 meters - leads to the fact that, before reaching the surface of the earth, the water crumbles into tiny splashes and turns into a thick fog that envelops the surrounding area.

One of the most beautiful tepui - Autana - rises 1300 meters above the forest and rocks. It is special in that it is permeated through with a cave that goes from one end to the other. The Autana plateau is decorated with dark gray rocks of the most bizarre shapes, and the funnels surrounding them are filled with the purest water.

The plateau of the mountains is completely isolated from the forest at the foot, which makes them "ecological islands" on which endemic species of flora and fauna have been preserved, developing in isolation for thousands of years.

Another well-known tepuya is Mount Sarisarinyama, on which there are many perfectly round funnels with a depth and diameter of several hundred meters. At the bottom of these funnels grow unique plants that are not found anywhere else in the world!

Funnels with crystal clean water found ubiquitously on many tepuis.

Clickable, Abismo-Guy-Collet Abismo Guy Collet

Different layers of sandstone are destroyed with different speed, so thousands of bizarre rocks formed on the plateau.

Tepui is best known for its bizarre rocks, which rise up to a height of 1.5-2 km and have absolutely flat tops. The researchers found that previously all these rocks were one single mountain plateau. However, over time, erosion destroyed its integrity, and instead of a plateau, several rocks of a bizarre shape appeared at once.

For example, each peak of the mountain is really unique in its own way, as a wide variety of plant species grow on it, preserved even from prehistoric times. This became possible only due to the isolation of each mountain from each other. Most of the rocks stand at a decent distance from each other, towering above the green canvas of the jungle.

The highest tepui are Piso de Neblina (3,014 meters), Pico Phelps (2,992 meters), Roraima (2,810 meters) and Cerro Marahuaca (2,800 meters).

Some tepui are well researched, while others have never been set foot by a human! Tepui is still little explored and represents big interest for scientists.

In general, this area is not only incredibly beautiful, but also very isolated and remote. Getting to tepui is not so easy, as you have to overcome hundreds of kilometers through the virgin forests of South America. In addition, on tepui without special climbing equipment just don't get up!

Roraima is the tallest tepui in Venezuela. Its height is 2810 meters, and the top - a plateau with an area of 34 km² - is completely covered with dense vegetation, bizarre stones, steep depressions, caves, small lakes and swamps. Local Indians call Mount Roraima “the navel of the earth” and believe that the progenitor of the human race, the goddess Queen, lives on its top.

These three, as well as many other lesser known but no less beautiful tepui, are located in canaima national park, lying in the southeastern part of Venezuela, at the junction of Brazil and Guyana. A reserve that stores priceless treasures on its territory natural resources, is included in the list world heritage UNESCO.

The nature of the Canaima National Park is extremely diverse and unique. In addition to the majestic table mountains, hung with beautiful waterfalls, in the park you can see rare species of flora and fauna that are found exclusively in this area. For example, carnivorous plants that lure insects into their beautiful fragrant traps and eat them. The foothills and slopes of the mountains are surrounded by cloud-covered forests, in which exquisite bromeliads and orchids stand out as bright spots.

On the tops of the tepui, herbs and shrubs grow luxuriantly. No less rich animal world Venezuelan park - there are monkeys of various sizes and species, jaguars, giant ants and many small animals. But greatest variety species boasts the world of birds, which in large quantities living in this rich land.

The biggest nature reserve Venezuela, the Canaima National Park, was founded in 1962 and is considered the oldest part of the Earth, whose age exceeds 2 million years. This lost world, as if accidentally preserved as it was many millions of years ago, is visited daily by thousands of tourists.

In Canaima National Park, vacationers are offered exciting excursions by canoe on the lagoon into which four waterfalls flow. Two of them - Golondrina and Ukaima - can be seen by canoeing, and under the other two - Acha and Sapo - there is a path along which you can walk inside the waterfall between the raging stream of water and the rock:

You can go to one of the most spectacular sights of the park - Angel Falls, excursions to which are carried out either by boat or by plane. If you go on a boat tour, you can see the picturesque Orchid Island along the way.

Those wishing to get acquainted with the life of the natives of these lands, you can go to northern part Canaima, where the settlement of the Pemon Indians is located. It provides a unique opportunity to immerse yourself in an unknown culture, communicate with the natives, get acquainted with their rituals, traditions, legends and way of life, which has been preserved since ancient times.

Among other things, this area is shrouded in a halo of secrets and mysteries, which are told not only by ancient legends and myths, but also by the reports of several expeditions organized by brave explorers. The last major official expedition in these hard-to-reach places, namely Mount Roraima, was formed in 1965 by the son of the famous Juan Angel, the discoverer of the world's highest waterfall.

The expedition diary describes wonderful world, in which the flat surface of the mountain top is covered with bizarre hills, shaped like mushrooms, unusual depressions filled with water are scattered everywhere, and besides already known to science animals, an unusual creature was discovered, which was named Cadborosaurus. The previously unseen beast had the head of a horse and the body of a snake with humps on its back. Frogs hatching eggs, bloodsucking insects, which were not affected by any chemical means of protection, giant ants more than 5 cm long, capable of biting small tree branches with their steel teeth, were also found here.

The biggest discovery for scientists was the discovery of the remains of ancient animals that until recently lived in these places. There is an assumption that they died as a result of experiments by aliens. Scientists were led to such a guess by a large round area discovered by the expedition, devoid of vegetation and completely strewn with silvery powder of unknown origin. Later, laboratory studies showed that this is an alloy of the rarest metals, which is simply unrealistic to create under earthly conditions.

During the examination of the caves, the researchers found a large number of rock paintings depicting fantastic animals and creatures remotely similar to people. The expedition members also discovered several crypts, inside of which there was a thick fog and a sweet smell hovered. Some team members, having inhaled this strange aroma, fell into a coma for several days, and when they woke up, they told their colleagues about incredible visions and travels to other worlds.

After this incident, it was decided to return back, but then a new surprise awaited the travelers: they could not find a way out of this enchanted world, as if some mysterious forces prevented this in every possible way.

Only a few months later, exhausted by the search for a way out, people managed to return home. They claim that they were helped by some unknown force, which picked them up and slowly lowered them to central square one of the Indian settlements.

When the scientists finally got to civilization, it turned out that the families had long since lost hope of their return: after all, the expedition, which, according to the plan, was supposed to return after several months of work, had been absent for four years.

For a long time, expeditions were not organized in this region, but today this lost world, which previously instilled fear in people, is visited daily by several dozen adventurers. Only for safety reasons it is advisable to make the ascent accompanied by an experienced guide.

I will show you some more interesting rock formations: for example , and here, well, famous The original article is on the website InfoGlaz.rf Link to the article from which this copy is made -

The wild beauty of the mountains beckons and, at the same time, guards - the giant rocky peaks conceal an age-old secret. Among the many mountain ranges table mountains are especially mysterious, soaring alone above the landscape - they seem unreal, abandoned to Earth from another galaxy, although their flat top and steep slopes formed as a result of quite understandable tectonic processes. Separated from the earth's surface many millions of years ago, high mountain plateaus - carriers of a unique, amazing flora and fauna - this is a unique "lost" world, as if descended from the pages of Arthur Conan Doyle's story.

Table Mountains: origin
Table Mountain (mesa, tableland, tafelberg) is a mountain plateau with an absolutely flat, as if cut, surface supported by steep slopes - hence the origin of the name of the lonely relief formations found on all continents of our planet. Flat-topped rocks owe their origin to tectonic activity, which once raised them above the surface.

McKay, Ontario, Canada
The final touch to the formation of rocky plateaus was made by the processes of erosion and weathering - soft rocks were washed away, while harder ones - sandstone, quartzite, basalt, limestone - remained. A separate group is made up of table mountains formed as a result of volcanic eruptions - they are characterized by a peak composed of igneous rocks.

Table mountains of South America
On the Guiana plateau Latin America- in Venezuela, Brazil and Guyana, there are rocks with flat peaks, named in the local dialect of the indigenous people - Tepui, which means "house of the gods." The Tepui rock formations are composed of sheer blocks of Precambrian quartz sandstone. Separated from the surrounding landscape, hanging in the form of islands 1-3 thousand meters high above tropical forest, tepui - owners of endemic flora and fauna. Rare flowers grow on the high plateaus - orchids and carnivorous plants, due to rocky soils that are poor in nutrients and unsuitable for other plant species.

Tepui-Ujnaya-America

At one time, science adhered to the hypothesis that the biodiversity of the rocky hills of South America is relict, which has not passed the stage of mixing of species. However, recent studies by scientists prove that tepui were not so tightly isolated from environment, as previously thought - for example, the endemic tree frog Tepuihyla got to the top of the Latin American tepui already after the mountain range had formed. In total, there are about 60 flat-topped formations in this region.

The most famous mesas-tepui mountains in South America:

1. Roraima (Mount Roraima, 2810 m), peak area 31 km2. Inspired by a report by Robert Schomburk on a rock mass in Latin America, which was provided to the Royal Geographic Society in 1844, Conan Doyle wrote his story "The Lost World" - it was Roraima who became the prototype of the mysterious mountain country inhabited by outlandish prehistoric animals.

Roraima Tepui, South America

2.Auantepui. This table mountain is the owner of the most high waterfall in the world - Angel (979 m), falling into a lake with a depth of 807 m. In the language of the indigenous population - pemons, the waterfall was until recently called Kerepakupai Vena. The current name is Angel, he received in honor of the American pilot Jimmy Angel, whose monoplane made emergency landing at the top of the plateau in 1937. It took the angel and his three companions 11 days to descend the mountain and return back to the civilized world. Only 33 years later, the legendary aircraft was raised from the top of the mountain, restored in the Aviation Museum and hoisted at the entrance to Ciudad Bolivar Airport.

Auan Tepui, Angel Falls, Venezuela

3. Kukenan or Matavi tepui (Matawi Tepui) , 2680 m), 3 km long. The local population, the Pemon Indians, consider the lonely standing table mountain to be the country of the dead, and the Kukenan River originates here.

Kukenan Tepui, Venezuela, South America

4. Ptari (Ptari-Tepui, 2700 m ). The classic version of the table mountain of South America - with a perfectly cut top and absolutely vertical slopes.

Ptari tepui, Venezuela, Latin America

Carnivorous Heliamphora flower on Ptari Tepui

5. Autana Tepui, 1300 m ). This plateau is notable for the fact that a horizontally oriented cave passes through its thickness, penetrating the rock through and through.

Tepui Autana, South America

6. Sarisarinam (Sarisarinama). The study of the mountain plateau began in 1961, when pilot Harry Gibson noticed unique natural holes on its flat top. Vertical cave-wells go deep into the rock - the longest of them has a length of 1.35 km.

Tepui Sarisarinama, Venezuela
Table mountain Tucumcari (Tucumcari Mountain) in Mexico is not much different from the tepui of the Guiana massif - at 1517 meters it rises above the South American savannah. Opened in 1793, the hermit peak caused a lot of controversy on the sidelines of scientists on the subject of age: at first it was assumed that the table mountain was formed during the Jurassic period, then it turned out that the rocky formation was younger and belongs to the Cretaceous period.

Tucumcari, Mexico
Nature has not bypassed Argentina either - there are also lonely mountains with horizontal ends on its territory - the duet of peaks of the Sierra Negra massif is located near the city of Zapala, famous for its coffee plantations. In addition to coffee, this region of South America is rich in precious metal deposits. In the depths of the mountain range there are gold mines, which have recently been run by the Canadian company Goldcorp - according to experts, about 0.5 million ounces of gold per year will be mined at the mine over the next 9 years, in July 2014 the first 100 kg were withdrawn from the stone depths.

Sierra Negra, Argentina

Table mountains of North America
Canyonlands National Park (Canyonlands national park) in Utah, near the city of Moab - a prime example eroded lands with multiple canyons, hills and mesas, between which the Colorado River and the Green River flow. The park is conditionally divided into three zones: Island in the Sky, Needles and Maze, each of which is remarkable in its own way. "Island in the Sky" is an extended plateau 366 m high, cut by the Colorado channel 305 m deep, with the highest point of White Rim, the Needles Zone is famous for well-preserved clay dwellings of American aborigines and the "stone newspaper" - Newspaper Rock - with carved on rocks with petroglyphs. In the Maze zone is the Barrier Canyon - the most inaccessible part of the plateau, where rock paintings and pictograms of ancient hunter-gatherers dating back to 2 thousand years BC were found.

Canyon Land, Utah, USA
On the border between Utah and Arizona lies the Monument Valley with solitary flat-topped peaks sometimes reaching 300 meters. The local Navajo Indians call this area, which belongs to the Colorado Plateau, the Valley of the Stones. The terracotta color of the mountains is due to the presence of iron oxide in the rock, and the darker, gray-orange hue of some rocks is due to manganese oxide. In the 1950s, uranium, vanadium and copper were mined in Monument Valley.

Monument Valley, Utah, USA
In the state of Colorado, on the green plateau of Mesa Verde, there is a national park - this is the country of Montezuma - ancient city, built by the Pueblo people (Anasazi Indians) many centuries ago. Over 600 rock dwellings were erected from 400 to 1200 AD. at the foot of the emerald table mountains and in their thickness, but after a 25-year drought, people were forced to leave their inhabited place.

City of Montezuma, Mesa Verde, Colorado, USA
Glass Mountains or Gloss Hills - table mountains western region Oklahoma (USA), rise above ground level from 46 to 61 meters. The array of hills with flat tops got its name back in 1820 from the first explorers of America due to sparkling inclusions of selenite.

Table Mountains Glass, Oklahoma, USA
In Oklahoma, on the Great Plains, there is another similar natural formation - the Black Mesa Plateau (Black Mesa, 1516 m) with a length of 270 km - on the top of this table mountain, native Indians have been setting up their camps for centuries.

Black Mesa, Oklahoma, USA
Over the coast of Cuba, in the province of Guantanamo, hangs the high plateau of El Yunque (El Yunque, 575 m), resembling a blacksmith's table in outline - this feature of the mountain served as the impetus for choosing its name: "yunque" is translated from Spanish as an anvil.

El Yunque, Cuba

Table mountains in Africa
Mountain fortress or Amby - the so-called table mountains in Africa - rocky plateaus in northern Ethiopia, composed of basalt and sandstone. There are three ambas in the Amhara region at once: Amba Geshen or Amara, Wehni and Debre Damo. The Amba Mountains are known as a place of imprisonment for brothers and male relatives of the king of Ethiopia, including sons. The unfortunate fell into a high-altitude dungeon immediately after the coronation of the heir to the throne and left it only after his death. When the sad tradition was annulled, in a remote mountainous area - in the temples on the tops of the rocks, they kept the treasures of the royal dynasty. Mount Geshen is famous for its Orthodox Church Lalibela in the form of a cross carved into the rock, and the table mountain Debre Damo (2216 m) is a Christian monastery of the 6th century.

Table mountain in Africa Debre Damo, Ethiopia

Orthodox monastery Lalibela on the table mountain Geshen, Ethiopia, Africa

African mesas in northern Ethiopia
On the territory of Ethiopia, many rocks with vertical slopes and a flat top are scattered: Amba Aradam (2756 m), Amba Alagi (3438 m), Kundudo (3000 m). In 2008, a lost stalagmite cave was discovered on Mount Kundudo with ancient rock paintings. Here is the habitat of the only population of wild horses preserved in the world.

Table mountain Kundudo, Ethiopia, Africa

Ammonites on Kundudo Mesa, Ethiopia

Coral stalagmites in a cave on Mount Kundudo, Ethiopia, Africa

The most famous African plateau in the world is the Table Mountain (1084 m) of Cape Town (South Africa) with a length of 3 km. It is also the symbol of the city, featured on its flag. A striking feature of the African mountain plateau - orographic clouds, almost constantly enveloping its top, form, as it were, a tablecloth on a flat tabletop. Local natives attribute unusual cloudiness to the devil lighting his pipe in the company of the pirate Van Hunky - this is ancient legend associated with Table Mountain. The age of the South African Table Mountain, built of hard gray quartz sandstone, is about 500 million years. The 2,200 species of plants growing on the high plateau are endemic and found nowhere else in the world. The symbol of the country of South Africa is a rare protea flower, the unique species of which are presented in national park table mountain.

Table Mountain Cape Town, South Africa, Africa
On the territory of Namibia, there are also several well-known rocky hills with a cut end: Etjo (500 m) with a length of 10 km, Grutberg (1840 m), Waterberg and Gamsberg. Their strange names in the Aryan way, the mesas of Namibia received from the first German explorers.

Table Mountain Etjo, Namibia, Africa

Table mountain Gamsberg, Africa

Table Mountain Waterberg, Africa

Table mountains of Western Europe
An unusually beautiful rocky formation with a flat end in Ireland (County Sligo) - table mountain Ben Balben (Benbulbin) - is part of the array of green mountains Darty. The name comes from the Irish word Binn, which means "peak", and Ghulbain, "jaw". Table mountain Ben Balben was formed about 320 million years ago due to the movement of ice from the northeast to the southwest of the island, during ice age. Once a high plateau was under the thickness ancient sea, as evidenced by fossilized marine organisms - shells and corals found by scientists in all layers rock. Ben Bulben is composed mainly of limestone and mudstone, a fine-grained sedimentary rock composed of petrified mud and clay.

Table Mountain Ben Bulben, Ireland, Europe

Table mountain Monte Santo (Monte Santo, 733 m), adjacent to the flat-topped rock of San Antonio in the Siligo region, is a landmark of the island of Sardinia (Italy).

Table mountain Monte Santo Sardinia island, Italy

Australian table mountains
Terracotta rock Uluru (Ayers Rock, 348 m) is considered the "heart" of Australia. Aborigines of the Anangu tribe settled in this area 10 thousand years ago, after a spring was discovered, beating directly from the top of a stone hill. Sacred to the natives, the table mountain Uluru is shrouded in an ominous haze - it is believed that it brings bad luck to those who try to climb it or take a piece of stone with them.

Table Mountain Uluru, Australia

northern mesas
In the northern latitudes, canteens or tabletop mountains have their own name - thuya (tuya). Tui are rock formations with a flat top, formed as a result of a volcanic eruption under the ice, as a result of which the lava came to the surface and transformed into solid basaltic rocks after cooling.

Table Mountain Brown Bluff, Antarctica
Thuja Brown Bluff, about a million years old and about 1.5 km long, is located on the northern tip of Antarctica. Red-brown tuff at the foot of the table mountain smoothly turns into an ash-gray top, cut by erosion. Brown Bluff is a world ornithological reserve - here is the habitat of an extensive colony of birds: 20 thousand pairs of Adélie penguins and 550 pairs of gentoos penguins.

Table Mountain Brown Bluff, Antarctica
On the territory of Canada, mainly in British Columbia, there are whole groups of high mountain plateaus. One of them is the 2021-meter table mountain Table Mountain, standing in the middle of Lake Garibaldi.

Table Mountain The Table, Canada
In the northern regions of the United States, you can find mesas-tuyas, formed on the site of stratovolcanoes and as a result of the descent of glaciers. In Oregon, there is the plateau Hayrick Butte (Hayrick Butte, 1683 m) - this is a kind of subglacial volcano with absolutely vertical slopes. At a distance of 3 km from it there is another thuja volcano - Hogg Rock (Hogg Rock, 1548 m). Unlike other table formations, Hogg Rock has one gentle slope, along which a road is laid to the top of the plateau.

Table Mountain Hayrick Butte in Oregon, USA

Diomede Islands in the Coastal Strait
Unusual Diomedes Islands (Diomedes Islands), the smaller of which belongs to the United States, and larger Russia- these are subglacial dormant thuja volcanoes in Bering Strait with a flat top. At times cold war between the USSR and the USA Diomedes, between which passes state border, bore the symbolic name of the "ice curtain".

Table mountains on Mars
Alpine plateaus in the form of table mountains exist not only on Earth, in the solar system they are also found on Mars - in the transition zone between the highlands and the plain, and their height varies from 100 m to 2 km. Scientists believe that the Martian mesas were formed due to the movement of ice and its subsequent evaporation in the atmosphere.

Tepui is the only place on Earth where no human foot has set foot. What animals live on Tepui, what plants grow on Tepui - all this is a dark forest for us, since people have visited only some Tepui. A most of Tepui is absolutely unexplored!

They become not only a source of legends and scary stories, but also a subject of creativity for science fiction artists:

Tepui are mesas in the Guiana Highlands of South America.

The largest natural reserve in Venezuela, the Canaima National Park, was founded in 1962 and is considered the oldest part of the Earth, whose age exceeds 2 million years. This lost world, as if accidentally preserved as it was many millions of years ago, is visited daily by thousands of tourists.

Also, many other less known, but no less beautiful tepui, are located in the Canaima National Park, which lies in the southeastern part of Venezuela, at the junction of Brazil and Guyana. The reserve, which stores priceless natural resources on its territory, is included in the UNESCO World Heritage List.

On the tops of the tepui, herbs and shrubs grow luxuriantly. The fauna of the Venezuelan park is no less rich - there are monkeys of various sizes and species, jaguars, giant ants and many small animals. But the world of birds, which live in large numbers on this rich land, boasts the greatest diversity of species.

In the Canaima National Park, vacationers are offered exciting canoe excursions along the lagoon, into which four waterfalls flow. Two of them - Golondrina and Ukaima - can be seen by canoeing, and under the other two - Acha and Sapo - there is a path along which you can walk inside the waterfall between the raging stream of water and the rock.

Those wishing to get to know the life of the natives of these lands better can go to the northern part of Canaima, where the settlement of the Pemon Indians is located. It provides a unique opportunity to immerse yourself in an unknown culture, communicate with the natives, get acquainted with their rituals, traditions, legends and way of life, which has been preserved since ancient times.

Among other things, this area is shrouded in a halo of secrets and mysteries, which are told not only by ancient legends and myths, but also by the reports of several expeditions organized by brave explorers. The last major official expedition to these hard-to-reach places, namely Mount Roraima, was formed in 1965 by the son of the famous Juan Angel, the discoverer of the world's highest waterfall.

The expedition diary describes an amazing world in which the flat surface of the mountain top is covered with bizarre hills resembling mushrooms, unusual depressions filled with water are scattered everywhere, and in addition to animals already known to science, an unusual creature was discovered, which was called Cadborosaurus. The previously unseen beast had the head of a horse and the body of a snake with humps on its back. Frogs hatching eggs, bloodsucking insects, which were not affected by any chemical means of protection, giant ants more than 5 cm long, capable of biting small tree branches with their steel teeth, were also found here.

When examining the caves, the researchers found a large number of rock paintings depicting fantastic animals and creatures that are remotely similar to people. The expedition members also discovered several crypts, inside of which there was a thick fog and a sweet smell hovered. Some team members, having inhaled this strange aroma, fell into a coma for several days, and when they woke up, they told their colleagues about incredible visions and travels to other worlds.

Only a few months later, exhausted by the search for a way out, people managed to return home. They claim that some unknown force helped them, which picked them up and slowly lowered them to the central square of one of the Indian settlements.

Tepui mountains are one of the most famous and mysterious mesas V South America. They are located on Guiana Highlands. The age of these mountains is approximately 200 million years. They consist of a single block of quartz or Precambrian sandstone.

What are table mountains?

The name "Tepui" was coined many years ago by a tribe of Indians and means "house of the gods". The height of the mountains can reach 2000 meters. They rise dramatically above the jungle vegetation and have steep rocky slopes and a flat top. It is these mountains that are called mesas.

Table mountains tepui located partly within the Canaima National Park in Venezuela. Together with the park itself, they are included in the UNESCO list. The reason for this was the presence of unique flora and fauna of the mountains. Being a place where no man has gone before, tepui preserved unique ancient species of extraordinary plants. The most beautiful of them are the oldest orchid plants, as well as unique carnivorous plants that eat small representatives of the animal world.

Climate on the surface and slopes Tepui Mountains in South America varies depending on the season and time of year. Sometimes there is a drought in the mountains, or on the contrary they pour heavy rains. The average air temperature ranges from 5 to 20 degrees. On the tops of the highest mountains of Tepui, the temperature at night can drop to 0 degrees. The air temperature depends on the measurement height.

The highest mountains of Tepui.

The highest are located Tepui there where the borders of Brazil, Venezuela, Guyana converge. The Pico de Neblina mountain reaches its maximum height. Its height is over 3000 meters. A few more unusual famous mountains. For example, on one of the mountains of Tepui is the highest Angel Falls in the world. The name of this table mountain is Auyantepui.

Tepui called Autana is not huge, its height is only 1300 meters. Main Feature This mountain is a cave that runs through the entire interior of the mountain. But this is not all the features of the Tepui mesas, which are fraught with mysterious South America.

Thanks to its unusual flora tepui are the most famous in the world mesas. One of the brightest representatives of the most ancient vegetation is the Sarisarinyama tepui. On the surface of this mountain there are quite deep funnels of a round shape. At the bottom of these funnels, unique and mysterious species of representatives of the plant world have found shelter.

With all the advantages of the tepui mesas, it is better to see them once than to hear about them many times. Their majesty and perfection is what every tourist visiting South America needs to see. Tepuy Table Mountains is a miracle of nature that must be imprinted in your memory forever.

On the Guiana Plateau of Latin America - in Venezuela, Brazil and Guyana, there are rocks with flat peaks, named in the local dialect of the indigenous peoples - Tepui, which means "house of the gods". The Tepui rock formations are composed of sheer blocks of Precambrian quartz sandstone. Separated from the surrounding landscape, hanging in the form of islands 1-3 thousand meters high above, tepui are the owners of endemic flora and fauna. Rare flowers grow on the high plateaus - orchids and, due to rocky soils that are poor in nutrients and unsuitable for other plant species.

At one time, science adhered to the hypothesis that the biodiversity of the rocky hills of South America is relict, which has not passed the stage of mixing of species. However, recent studies by scientists prove that tepui were not as rigidly isolated from the environment as previously thought - for example, the endemic Tepuihyla got to the top of Latin American tepui after the mountain range had formed. In total, there are about 60 flat-topped formations in this region.

The most famous mesas-tepui mountains in South America:

1. Roraima (Mount Roraima, 2810 m), peak area 31 km2. Inspired by the report of Robert Schomburk on the rock mass of Latin America, which was presented to the Royal Geographical Society in 1844, Conan Doyle wrote his story "The Lost World" - it was Roraima who became the prototype of a mysterious mountainous country inhabited by outlandish prehistoric animals.

Roraima Tepui, South America

2. Auantepui. This table mountain is the owner of the highest waterfall in the world - Angel (979 m), falling into a lake with a depth of 807 m. In the language of the indigenous population - Pemon, the waterfall was called Kerepakupai Vena until recently. The current name is Angel, he received in honor of the American pilot Jimmy Angel, whose monoplane made an emergency landing at the top of the plateau in 1937. It took the angel and his three companions 11 days to descend the mountain and return back to the civilized world. Only 33 years later, the legendary aircraft was raised from the top of the mountain, restored in the Aviation Museum and hoisted at the entrance to Ciudad Bolivar Airport.

Auan Tepui, Angel Falls, Venezuela

3. Kukenan or Matavi Tepui (Matawi Tepui), 2680 m), 3 km long. The local population, the Pemon Indians, consider the lonely standing table mountain to be the country of the dead, and the Kukenan River originates here.

Kukenan Tepui, Venezuela, South America

4. Ptari (Ptari-Tepui, 2700 m). The classic version of the table mountain of South America - with a perfectly cut top and absolutely vertical slopes.

Ptari tepui, Venezuela, Latin America

Carnivorous Heliamphora flower on Ptari Tepui

5. Autana Tepui, 1300 m. This plateau is notable for the fact that a horizontally oriented cave passes through its thickness, penetrating the rock through and through.

Tepui Autana, South America

6. Sarisarinam (Sarisarinama). The study of the mountain plateau began in 1961, when pilot Harry Gibson noticed unique natural holes on its flat top. Vertical cave-wells go deep into the rock - the longest of them has a length of 1.35 km.

Tepui Sarisarinama, Venezuela

Table mountain Tucumcari (Tucumcari Mountain) in Mexico is not much different from the tepui of the Guiana massif - at 1517 meters it rises above the South American savannah. Opened in 1793, the hermit peak caused a lot of controversy on the sidelines of scientists on the subject of age: at first it was assumed that the table mountain was formed during the Jurassic period, then it turned out that the rocky formation was younger and belongs to the Cretaceous period.

Tucumcari, Mexico

Nature has not bypassed Argentina either - there are also lonely mountains with horizontal ends on its territory - the duet of peaks of the Sierra Negra massif is located near the city of Zapala, famous for its coffee plantations. In addition to coffee, this region of South America is rich in precious metal deposits. In the depths of the mountain range there are gold mines, which have recently been run by the Canadian company Goldcorp - according to experts, about 0.5 million ounces of gold per year will be produced at the mine over the next 9 years, in July 2014 the first 100 kg were withdrawn from the stone depths.

Sierra Negra, Argentina

Table mountains of North America

The Canyonlands National Park in Utah, near the city of Moab, is a vivid example of eroded lands with multiple canyons, hills and mesas, between which the Colorado River and the Green River flow. The park is conditionally divided into three zones: Island in the Sky, Needles and Maze, each of which is remarkable in its own way. "Isle in the Sky" is an extended plateau 366 m high, cut by the Colorado River 305 m deep, with the highest point of the White Rim, the Needles Zone is famous for well-preserved clay dwellings and the "stone newspaper" - Newspaper Rock - with petroglyphs carved into the rocks . In the Maze zone is the Barrier Canyon, the most inaccessible part of the plateau, where rock paintings and pictograms of ancient hunter-gatherers dating back to 2000 BC have been found.

Canyon Land, Utah, USA

On the border between Utah and Arizona lies the Monument Valley with solitary flat-topped peaks sometimes reaching 300 meters. The local Navajo Indians call this area, which belongs to the Colorado Plateau, the Valley of the Stones. The terracotta color of the mountains is due to the presence of iron oxide in the rock, and the darker, gray-orange hue of some rocks is due to manganese oxide. In the 1950s, uranium, vanadium and copper were mined in Monument Valley.

Monument Valley, Utah, USA

In the state of Colorado, on the green plateau of Mesa Verde, there is a national park - this is the country of Montezuma - an ancient city built by the Pueblo people (Anasazi Indians) many centuries ago. Over 600 rock dwellings were erected between 400 and 1200 AD. at the foot of the emerald table mountains and in their thickness, but after a 25-year drought, people were forced to leave their inhabited place.

City of Montezuma, Mesa Verde, Colorado, USA

Glass Mountains or Gloss Hills - mesas in the western region of Oklahoma (USA), rise above ground level from 46 to 61 meters. The array of hills with flat tops got its name back in 1820 from the first explorers of America due to sparkling inclusions of selenite.

Table Mountains Glass, Oklahoma, USA

In Oklahoma, on the Great Plains, there is another similar natural formation - the Black Mesa Plateau (Black Mesa, 1516 m) with a length of 270 km - on the top of this table mountain, native Indians have been setting up their camps for centuries.

Black Mesa, Oklahoma, USA

Over the coast of Cuba, in the province of Guantanamo, hangs the high plateau of El Yunque (El Yunque, 575 m), resembling a blacksmith's table in outline - this feature of the mountain served as the impetus for choosing its name: "yunque" is translated from Spanish as an anvil.

El Yunque, Cuba

Table mountains in Africa

Mountain fortress or Amba - the so-called table mountains in Africa - rocky plateaus in northern Ethiopia, composed of sandstone. There are three ambas in the Amhara region at once: Amba Geshen or Amara, Wehni and Debre Damo. The Amba Mountains are known as a place of imprisonment for brothers and male relatives of the king of Ethiopia, including sons. The unfortunate fell into a high-altitude dungeon immediately after the coronation of the heir to the throne and left it only after his death. When the sad tradition was annulled, in a remote mountainous area - in temples on the tops of rocks, they kept the treasures of the royal dynasty. Mount Geshen is famous for its Lalibela Orthodox Church in the form of a cross carved into the rock, and the table mountain Debre Damo (2216 m) is a Christian monastery of the 6th century.

Table mountain in Africa Debre Damo, Ethiopia

Orthodox monastery Lalibela on the table mountain Geshen, Ethiopia, Africa

African mesas in northern Ethiopia

On the territory of Ethiopia, many rocks with vertical slopes and a flat top are scattered: Amba Aradam (2756 m), Amba Alagi (3438 m), Kundudo (3000 m). In 2008, a lost stalagmite cave with ancient rock paintings was discovered on Mount Kundudo. Here is the habitat of the only population of wild horses preserved in the world.

Ammonites on Kundudo Mesa, Ethiopia

Coral stalagmites in a cave on Mount Kundudo, Ethiopia, Africa

The most famous African plateau in the world is the Table Mountain (1084 m) of Cape Town (South Africa) with a length of 3 km. It is also the symbol of the city, featured on its flag. A striking feature of the African mountain plateau - orographic clouds, almost constantly enveloping its top, form, as it were, a tablecloth on a flat tabletop. Local natives attribute unusual cloudiness to the devil lighting his pipe in the company of the pirate Van Hunky - this is an ancient legend associated with Table Mountain. The age of the South African Table Mountain, built of hard gray quartz sandstone, is about 500 million years. The 2,200 species of plants growing on the high plateau are endemic and found nowhere else in the world. The symbol of the country of South Africa is, the unique species of which are presented in the Table Mountain National Park.

On the territory of Namibia, there are also several well-known rocky hills with a cut end: Etjo (500 m) with a length of 10 km, Grutberg (1840 m), Waterberg and Gamsberg. The table mountains of Namibia received their strange names in the Aryan way from the first German explorers.

Table Mountain Etjo, Namibia, Africa

Table mountain Gamsberg, Africa

Table Mountain Waterberg, Africa

Table mountains of Western Europe

An unusually beautiful rocky formation with a flat end in Ireland (County Sligo) - table mountain Ben Bulbin - is part of the array of green Darty mountains. The name comes from the Irish word Binn, which means "peak", and Ghulbain, "jaw". Table mountain Ben Balben was formed about 320 million years ago due to the movement of ice from the northeast to the southwest of the island, during the Ice Age. Once upon a time, a high-altitude plateau was under the thickness of an ancient sea, as evidenced by fossilized marine organisms - shells and found by scientists in all layers of the rock. Ben Bulben is composed mainly of limestone and mudstone, a fine-grained sedimentary rock composed of petrified mud and clay.

Table Mountain Ben Bulben, Ireland, Europe

Table mountain Monte Santo (Monte Santo, 733 m), adjacent to the flat-topped rock of San Antonio in the Siligo region, is a landmark of the island of Sardinia (Italy).

Table mountain Monte Santo Sardinia island, Italy

Australian table mountains

Terracotta rock Uluru (Ayers Rock, 348 m) is considered the "heart". Aborigines of the Anangu tribe settled in this area 10 thousand years ago, after a spring was discovered, beating directly from the top of a stone hill. Sacred to the natives, the table mountain of Uluru is shrouded in an ominous haze - it is believed that it brings bad luck to those who try to climb it or take a piece of stone with them.

northern mesas

In the northern latitudes, dining or table-top mountains have their own name - thuya (tuya). Tui are rock formations with a flat top, formed as a result of a volcanic eruption under the ice, as a result of which the lava came to the surface and transformed into solid basaltic rocks after cooling.

Thuja Brown Bluff, about a million years old and about 1.5 km long, is located on the northern tip of Antarctica. Red-brown tuff at the foot of the table mountain smoothly turns into an ash-gray top, cut by erosion. Brown Bluff is a World Bird Sanctuary, home to an extensive bird colony of 20,000 pairs of Adélie penguins and 550 pairs of gentoos penguins.

Table Mountain Brown Bluff, Antarctica

On the territory of Canada, mainly in British Columbia, there are whole groups of high mountain plateaus. One of them is the 2021-meter table mountain Table Mountain, standing in the middle of Lake Garibaldi.

Table Mountain The Table, Canada

In the northern regions of the United States, you can find mesas-tuyas, formed on the site of stratovolcanoes and as a result of the descent of glaciers. In Oregon, there is the Hayrick Butte Plateau (1683 m) - this is a type of subglacial volcano with absolutely vertical slopes. At a distance of 3 km from it is another thuja volcano - Hogg Rock (Hogg Rock, 1548 m). Unlike other table formations, Hogg Rock has one gentle slope, along which a road is laid to the top of the plateau.

Table Mountain Hayrick Butte in Oregon, USA

Diomede Islands in the Coastal Strait

The unusual Diomedes Islands, the smaller of which belongs to the United States, and the larger of which belongs to Russia, are subglacial dormant thuja volcanoes in the Bering Strait with a flat top. During the Cold War between the USSR and the USA, Diomedes, between which the state border passes, were symbolically called the "ice curtain".

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