Which mountains are the oldest. Are the oldest mountains in Russia the Urals? Young and ancient mountains

High view of antiquity.
The Ural Mountains are the oldest mountain formations on Earth. Formation began in the late Devonian period - more than 364 million years ago. It ended in the Triassic period - after 135 million years. The system includes unique mountain Pencil (Turkic Kara-tash), whose age is 4.2 billion years - 400 million years younger than the Earth. Consists of an igneous rock with a minimal content of organic compounds, called Israndite.

The first mention dates back to the 7th century BC - Herodotus tells about the poem "Arimaspeia" by Aristaeus Proconesus. For the first time the mountains of the Urals are depicted by Claudius Ptolemy (2nd century AD). The Arab geographer al-Idrisi gave more detailed description in his work of the twelfth century. A Russian mention can be found in The Tale of Bygone Years (XI century AD). The current name was given to them by the Russian geographer Vasily Tatishchev in the 18th century, separating them from the ancient designations: Hyperborean and Riphean. In the Tatar language “Ural” means “stone belt”.

The bizarre system of mountains of the Urals stretches from south to north for more than 2500 kilometers ( for the most part 60th meridian). It lies among the West Siberian and East European plains, extending up to 160 km wide. Is natural boundary Europe and Asia. In the south, the mountains expand, deviating to the southwest, in the north they bend towards the Yamal Peninsula.

In antiquity, geographers separated the Southern (Noros), Middle (Rimnus) and Northern (Hyperborean) sections of the Urals. Now a conditional division into 5 regions has been adopted: Southern, Middle, Northern, Subpolar, Polar.
The appearance of the Ural Mountains is not the same everywhere.
In the north: thin ridges, rocky peaks and glaciers.
In the foothills there are herds of deer.
Middle Ural- the lowest part. Time has turned it almost into a plain, on which the remnants of the destroyed mountains rise - remnants.
In the south, the mountains rise again. There are rivers flowing in bottomless gorges, many lakes.

There are many different animals in the mountain forests of the middle and southern Urals. The Ural Mountains are rich in minerals (48 items) and minerals (200). Non-ferrous metal and iron ores, salts, coal, precious metals occur here. There are abundant deposits of skarn-magnetite ores, oxide nickel, copper pyrite, chromite, gold and platinum, bauxite and asbestos. The Petersburg Hermitage presents bowls made of Ural jasper and malachite. It is difficult to list all the fossils in the bowels of the Urals.

In 2001, Canadian scientists tried to challenge the age championship of Mount Pencil. The age of the Nuvvuagittuk rocks, located near the Eskimo village of the same name, was named 4.3 billion years. Disputes continue to this day, leaving the palm behind the Urals.

What are the oldest mountains on planet Earth?

Mountains are found on all continents and many major islands in Greenland, Madagascar, Taiwan, New Zealand, British and others. The mountains of Antarctica are largely buried under the ice sheet, but there are individual volcanic mountains, such as Mount Erebus, and mountain ranges, including the mountains of Queen Maud Land and Mary Byrd Land are high and well defined in relief. Australia has fewer mountains than any other continent. In the North and South America Europe, Asia and Africa are represented by cordilleras, mountain systems, ranges, groups of mountains and single mountains. Himalayas in the south Central Asia, represent the highest and youngest mountain system in the world. The longest mountain system is the Andes in South America, stretching for 7560 km from Cape Horn to caribbean. They are older than the Himalayas and apparently had a more complex history of development. The mountains of Brazil are lower and much older than the Andes. IN North America mountains reveal very big variety by age, structure, structure, origin and degree of dismemberment. Laurentian Upland, occupying the territory from the lake. top up Nova Scotia, is a relic of highly eroded high mountains formed in the Archaean more than 570 million years ago. In many places, only the structural roots of these ancient mountains remain. The Appalachians are intermediate in age. They first experienced uplift in the Late Paleozoic c. 280 million years ago and were much higher than now. Then they underwent significant destruction, and in the Paleogene ca. 60 million years ago were re-raised to modern heights. The Sierra Nevada mountains are younger than the Appalachians. They also went through a stage of significant destruction and re-uplift. System rocky mountains The USA and Canada are younger than the Sierra Nevada, but older than the Himalayas. The Rocky Mountains formed during the Late Cretaceous and Paleogene. They survived two major stages of uplift, the last in the Pliocene, only 23 million years ago. It is unlikely that the Rocky Mountains have ever been higher than at present. The Cascade Mountains and Coast Ranges in the western United States and most of the mountains of Alaska are younger than the Rocky Mountains. The coast ranges of California are still experiencing very slow uplift.
The Ural Mountains are the oldest in the world
The most ancient mountains on Earth are the mountains of the Kola Peninsula .. . In the ancient Indian legend "Mahabharata" a description of the ancestral home of the Aryans is given, where there was a high mountain Meru with main peak Mandara, above which was the North Star (Putorana Plateau). In the cosmology of Ancient Iran, it was argued that during the creation of the World, Khara Berezaiti (Mount Meru) was created first of all. All other mountains of different parts of the world have grown through e root system and were connected by underground roots with this primeval high Hara (Meru). The "Avesta" says that the first mountain that arose on Earth is the Great Hara. There is a story in Zoroastrian teaching that sacred mountain grew in three stages over 800 years. On the highest peak, shining with gold and gems, a palace was built for Mithra, the great Aryan God... Indication of ancient sources that Mount Meru was not far from northern ocean, under polar star, with the wealth of waterfalls, rivers, lakes, flora and fauna, birds, as well as the fact that the mountains are the most ancient on Earth, indicate that the abode of the Aryan gods was located on the Putorana plateau in the area mountain top 1700 meters high, located to the east of the city of Norilsk and Lake Lama. This is confirmed by the fact that the Aryan peoples, the Arimaspians, lived near Lake Lama and on the Putorana Plateau before the new era. In these places, and today there are numerous ground and underground structures. Lake Lama has interesting stone formations, as well as underground labyrinths, extending to the east and north. There are suggestions that near Lake Lama in different time there were capitals and cult centers of various peoples, including the Aryans and Arismans (arimasps). cultural centers ancient peoples were near the rivers Yantali, Kochechum and in the bend of the river Minchanda under the thickness of the "cultural layer" of the earth.
About seven thousand years ago, a significant part of the Aryans, under the pressure of the cold that appeared, went into southbound towards Altai, Turgai plateau, India.
Ararat
If I'm not mistaken, then according to the school curriculum, these are the Ural Mountains. There are no sharp rocks, time destroyed them the most.
I forgot what they're called, but you can google it. They are located exactly in South Africa.
Why did it interest you?
There are no ancient mountains on earth. they are all from the same time.

Often in sources on the topic of the article it is reported that the most ancient mountains on planet Earth are the Ural Mountains. But the Urals have competitors in this topic ....

Interestingly, ancient geographers divided the Ural mountains into different sections. For example:

the middle Ural was called Rimnus,
northern - Hyperborean mountains,
and the South - Noros.

As for the oldest surviving chronicle of Rus', the notorious Tale of Bygone Years, the modern Ural mountains are called Poyasov, Big Stone, or the Earth Belt.

Initially, the word "Ural" in Rus' was applied only to the territory Southern Urals. The 19th century researcher V. N. Shishonko noted that the “Ural” included the area where the Zlatoust factories were located, as well as areas a little to the south and a little to the north. Naturally, the peaks of Taganay were also among the original "Ural" mountains.

We owe the modern perception of what and where the Ural Mountains are to Vasily Tatishchev. For all this giant mountain belt, it was he who firmly fixed the name "Ural". Knowing that locals, from ancient times they call their native mountains "Ural", and their country "Ural ile" ("country of the Urals"), he decided to give this name to the entire mountain range stretching for 2600 kilometers. And soon, in business as well as colloquial speech, the entire “stone belt” turned into “Ural mountains”.

However, it is perhaps fair that South part The Urals gave the name to the entire huge mountain range. It is here that you can fully experience the beauty and diversity of the Ural nature with its characteristic features: an abundance of mountains and lakes, a variety climatic zones, landscapes, as well as the diversity of animal and flora. And it is symbolic that it is the fabulous mountains of Taganay that are the first, “true” Ural mountains. Now Taganay - national park, access to which is restricted.

By the way, the indigenous peoples of the Urals have other traditional names for the Ural Mountains:

Komi called them "Iz",
Mansi - Nyor,
Khanty-Kev,
Nenets - Ngarka Pe

Also included in Ural mountains, in the territory Chelyabinsk region is the most ancient mountain… on the planet(!)? The name of the mountain is unpretentious - Pencil, it is located in the Kusinsky district. According to preliminary estimates, its age is 4.2 billion years (for comparison: the age of the planet Earth is approximately 4.6 billion).

Once this mountain was much higher. And today its height is some 600 meters. This is everything that air, water and wind have not destroyed. Most of her "peers" have long been destroyed by time.

Mount Pencil is unique only because of its age, but also because it consists of the oldest and rarest stone, israndite. It is practically impossible to meet him on the planet. This is an almost black rock, which is closer in composition to the earth's mantle than to the earth's crust.

But fast forward to Canada

Scientists have determined that the age of the rocks that are located near the Eskimo village Nuvvuagittuq, is equal to 4.3 billion years. This mountain formation got its name from the same Eskimo village - Nuvvuagittuq.

Where there are now stable platforms, the elements raged earlier: ascended faults from the depths of the magma, erupted lava flows, and the layers repeatedly crumpled into folds. Rise and fall again high mountains. This went on for billions of years, until the earth's crust here became so rigid and inflexible as a result of its penetration by granites and other igneous rocks that it no longer reacted to tectonic forces. It was already a stable block! But old mountains collapsed, and time did not spare them, old age set in, which even stone giants do not avoid.

Destruction of mountain ranges and old mountains

Millions of years spent destructive work water flows, wind, temperature changes before they were "cut off" mountain ranges and no plains arose in their place. And then the former mountainous area experienced only smooth subsidence and small uplifts. When immersed, waters from the ocean or neighboring still living and mobile zones - geosynclines entered it, and small vast seas arose. Limestones and clastic rocks were deposited in them (during the repeated washing of the fragments of the once destroyed mountains). From these new strata, a platform cover arose, composed of horizontal layers of now slightly altered rocks.

Stable ancient rigid blocks lay quietly, and the bedding of the platform cover that covered them was not disturbed. But this is also for the time being. There have been cases of revival of tectonic movements along the faults, and then during the processes of resumption of movements (activation) old mountains took on a second youth.

From under the cover, the most ancient historical strata on the platforms come out in raised blocks - shields. By studying the most ancient rocks at these outcrops, geologists get an idea of the processes of the distant past, the great upheavals and "revolutions" that have taken place here many times since the earliest stages of the geological history of the Earth.

destruction old mountains visible in Araval mountains of northwestern India. The hills scorched by the sun vividly resemble the foothills of a sultry Central Asia. Billions of years ago there were mountains as tall as they are now Himalayas.

The emergence of young mountains

TO young mountains that have arisen at the site of mobile zones - geosynclines, include peaks of vietnam with their steep steep slopes, where lush vegetation clings to the rocks in the gorges tropical jungle, huge ranges of North American Cordillera and Rocky Mountains, Supreme Stanovoy Ridge of the South Far East . Young ridges, rising like steep steps above flat platform plains, differ sharply from old gentle mountains like Ural.

What forces were raised by these greatest mountain structures and brought to the surface of the deep bowels of the Earth?

The reasons for such processes are studied theoretical tectonics. She also has the honor of dealing with issues of the origin and deep structure of the Earth.

Mountain systems are perhaps one of the most monumental and impressive creations of nature. When you look at the snow-covered peaks, lined up one after another for hundreds of kilometers, you involuntarily wonder: what kind of immense force created them?

Mountains always seem to people to be something unshakable, ancient, like eternity itself. But the data of modern geology perfectly demonstrate how changeable the relief of the Mountains can be located where the sea once splashed. And who knows which point on Earth will be the highest in a million years, and what will happen to the majestic Everest ...

Mechanisms for the formation of mountain ranges

To understand how mountains are formed, it is necessary to have a good understanding of what the lithosphere is. This term refers to the outer shell of the Earth, which has a very heterogeneous structure. On it you can find peaks thousands of meters high, and deepest canyons, and vast plains.

The earth's crust is formed by giant ones that are in constant motion and from time to time collide with edges. This leads to the fact that certain parts of them crack, rise and change the structure in every possible way. As a result, mountains are formed. Of course, the change in the position of the plates is very slow - only a few centimeters per year. However, it is thanks to these gradual shifts that dozens of mountain systems have formed on Earth over millions of years.

The land has both sedentary areas (mainly in their place large plains are formed, such as the Caspian), and rather "restless" areas. Basically, ancient seas were once located on their territory. At a certain moment, a period of intense and pressure of the rising magma set in. As a result, the seabed, with all its variety of sedimentary rocks, rose to the surface. So, for example, there were

As soon as the sea finally "recedes", the rock mass that has appeared on the surface begins to be actively affected by precipitation, winds and temperature changes. It is thanks to them that each mountain system has its own special, unique relief.

How are tectonic mountains formed?

Scientists consider movement tectonic plates the most accurate explanation of how folded and blocky mountains. When the platforms shift, the earth's crust in certain areas can be compressed, and sometimes even break apart, rising from one edge. In the first case, they are formed (some of their regions can be found in the Himalayas); another mechanism describes the occurrence of blocky (for example, Altai).

Some systems are characterized by massive, steep, but not too divided slopes. This is a characteristic feature of blocky mountains.

How are volcanic mountains formed?

The process by which volcanic peaks form is quite different from how folded mountains form. The name speaks quite clearly about their origin. volcanic mountains occur in the place where magma erupts to the surface - molten rock. It can come out through one of the cracks in the earth's crust and accumulate around it.

At some points on the planet, one can observe entire ridges of this type - the result of the eruption of several nearby volcanoes. Regarding how mountains are formed, there is such an assumption: molten rocks, finding no way out, simply press on the surface of the earth's crust from the inside, as a result of which huge "bulges" appear on it.

Special case - underwater volcanoes located at the bottom of the oceans. The magma that comes out of them is able to solidify, forming entire islands. States such as Japan and Indonesia are located precisely on land areas of volcanic origin.

Young and ancient mountains

About age mountain system clearly speaks of its relief. The sharper and higher the peaks, the later it formed. Mountains are considered young if they were formed no more than 60 million years ago. This group includes, for example, the Alps and the Himalayas. Studies have shown that they originated about 10 million years ago. And although there was still a huge amount of time before the appearance of man, compared to the age of the planet, this is a very short time. The Caucasus, Pamir and Carpathians are also considered young.

An example of ancient mountains - Ural Range(its age is more than 4 billion years). This group also includes the North and South American Cordilleras and the Andes. According to some reports, the most ancient mountains on the planet are located in Canada.

Modern mountain formation

In the 20th century, geologists came to an unequivocal conclusion: huge forces are contained in the depths of the Earth, and the formation of its relief never stops. Young mountains “grow” all the time, increasing in height by about 8 cm per year, the ancient ones are constantly being destroyed under the influence of wind and water, slowly but surely turning into plains.

A clear example that the process of change natural landscape never stops - constantly occurring earthquakes and volcanic eruptions. Another factor influencing the process of how mountains are formed is the movement of rivers. When a certain piece of land is raised, their channels become deeper and cut harder into the rocks, sometimes paving entire gorges. Traces of rivers can be found on the slopes of the peaks, along with the remains of the valleys. It should be noted that in the destruction mountain ranges the same natural forces that once shaped their relief are involved: temperatures, precipitation and winds, glaciers and underground sources.

Scientific versions

Modern versions of orogeny (the origin of mountains) are represented by several hypotheses. Scientists put forward the following probable reasons:

sinking of ocean trenches;
drift (sliding) of the continents;
subcrustal currents;
swelling;
contraction of the earth's crust.

One of the versions of how mountains are formed is related to the action. Since the Earth is a sphere, all particles of matter tend to be located symmetrically about the center. In addition, all rocks differ in mass, and the lighter of them eventually become “forced out” to the surface by heavy ones. Together, these causes lead to the appearance of irregularities on the earth's crust.

Modern science is trying to determine the underlying mechanism of tectonic change based on which mountains were formed as a result of this or that process. There are still many questions connected with orogeny that still remain unanswered.