Created by collapsed volcanoes hundreds of years ago and white topped with glaciers that are millions of years old, the Ecuadorian mountain is a known landmark. With the name of The Ice Throne of God, thousands of expert climbers come from the farthest corners of the Earth to attempt to scale this giant, but few succeed. Home to hundreds of graves, and with its towering heights, it earns the title of tallest mountain in Ecuador.
The Chimborazo mountain rises 2,500 m (8202.1 ft) above surrounding landscapes and was known for many years as the highest mountain on Earth, but was dethroned by the Peruvian and Himalayan peaks. This mountain is however, said to be the farthest point from the center of the Earth. This is caused by the surrounding
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sea level, while the Peruvian and Himalayas are higher, they are lower to sea level. This mountain was created by stratovolcanoes that is thought to have collapsed 35,000 years ago, causing a huge debris avalanche as well as forming the mountain seen today. Debris from this long ago avalanche can still be found underneath the city of Riobamba. The volcano that formed the Chimborazo was thought for a long time to be considered inactive, but research shows that it may be active still today. The location of the Chimborazo is also key to it’s title of highest point. The Chimborazo sits directly on top of the equatorial bulge, a 26.5 mile piece of land created by the force of Earth’s rotation resulting in a large hill on the surface. It is a part of the Cordillera Occidental of the Andes, a part of central Ecuador. The mountain is 150 km southwest of Quito. Neighbor to the 5,018 mile high volcanic mountain Carihuairazo. The mountain can also be seen on clear days from the coastal city of Guayaquil, which is 140 km away. The mountain is closest to the cities of Amato, 30 km away, and Riobamba, also 30 km away. Chimborazo is also located at the main end of the Ecuadorian Volcanic Arc. The mountain can be seen from over 160 miles away on a clear day, thanks to the fact that it rises 2,500 m above the other surrounding volcanic mountains. The exact name of the mountain is unknown. Some experts believe that the words schingbu meaning “woman” and razo meaning “snow” creating the name of Woman of Snow. Local natives call this mountain Urcorazo meaning the mountain of ice. Chimbo is Jivaro for Throne of Master/God resulting in Ice throne of God. Also still, another group of native people called the Quichua claim that the mountains name is a hispanicized version of the word Chimbarazu, meaning “The snow on the other side.” Whatever the meaning, a common ground can be made that it is named after it’s mountanus size and beautiful snowy tops. The mountain is topped with huge glaciers left over from when the volcano collapsed. Ice merchants would wind their way up to the snowy tops to harvest the ice, packed with minerals and vitamins that naturally occur in the glaciers, to bring back to their villages below. The villagers also rely on the slow melt of the glaciers for drinkable water, and minerals. Today however, these ancient glaciers are quickly melting, and so is the need for glacier ice. An ice merchant who has been trekking up the hill since he was a child named Baltzar says “But times are changing and nobody needs us to bring ice anymore.” (Pg. 1 of Ice Merchant Tradition Melts Away with the Glaciers by: Manon Verchot Apr. 9, 2015). The ice is melting due to climate change, and ash from the collapsed volcano. These glaciers are the only source of water for many of the surrounding Ecuadorian villages, so as more and more of them disappear it becomes an evermore daunting threat. Scientists believe that the source of the melting comes from the heat of the surrounding volcanoes (inactive/active ones both) and climate change, as well as mining and harvesting the glaciers. There is not much to stop the melting, other than the halt put on collecting glaciers. As the farthest point from the center of the Earth, the Chimborazo mountain attracts hundreds of professional climbers every year. The most commonly taken route up the side of the mountain is on the Southwest flank up to the original route. The climb takes 10 hours up and 4 to return, with the trip starting at before midnight and ending a little after 10 am. The mountain is climbable year round, best time to climb being June and July. Highest climbers include 1802 Aime Bonpland and Alexander von Humbolt reached a height of 19,3000 feet before having to turn back. Late 1968 an American/German team summited the challenging North Ridge via the Abraspungo Glacier. In 1993 one of the worst accidents happened in the climbing history occurred when the upper slopes of the mountain broke loose and thirteen people were buried in the avalanche, resulting in ten deaths, and major frostbite and injury of the three survivors. Because of this and a few other accidents, the sides of the Chimborazo are littered with tombstones of fallen climbers. Since then, no major injuries and deaths have been reported, and people still continue to climb. While it is almost impossible to reach the very summit of the mountain, hundreds of climbers still try every year. At the base of the mountain is the wildlife reserve translated roughly to Forest Reserve Chimborazo. The reserve is 58,560,000 acres of protected land named after the towering Chimborazo that borders one side of it. Formed in October 26, 1987 the preserve is home of many native plants, flowers and animals that live on the side of the Chimborazo. The FRC is also home to an extremely rare species of llama, found only in a small area of Ecuador as well as the Chimborazo’s Star hummingbird. The closest town to the reservation is 180 km (111.8 miles) away, called Quito, which has the main roads into the reserve. --- In August 1976, a Cuenca bound 727 Boeing jet from Quito went missing as well as its 55 passengers and 4 crew members.
Hundreds of search parties and search dogs combed the side of the Chimborazo and surrounding area, and theories arose about the fate of the SAETA 232. After 27 years, in February, 2003 a group of hikers discovered the crash and all 59 victims aboard 17,700 feet above the mountains base. The bodies of the plane crash victims were intact and almost perfectly preserved due to the high altitude and year round freezing temperatures. However, each of the bodies, as well as the plane compartments had been stripped of clothing, jewelery, wallets, valuables, and other possessions. It is unknown how long ago the bodies were discovered, or who would be too cruel to alert the authorities that they had found the victims. Furthermore, because of the early date in the crash, and the lack of security measures taken during this early flying age, there is no concrete cause of how the plane crashed into the side of the mountain, or what may have happened during that day in August. While some believe it to be only a mid-route crash, others believe it to be a guerrilla highjacking. Whatever the cause, the crash only brings attention to just how big Chimborazo is, and how many mysteries it still may
hold. The people who reside around Ecuador are also important to the mountain. Native people of the Chimborazo area are called the Sierra Indians and have a population of about 1.5 to 2 million throughout the mountain ranges. The Indians of Sierra separate themselves from the white and mestizos (Euro-Amerindians) by a caste like gulf. These people are marked as a disadvantaged group, and anyone of that culture are stigmatized as being poor and illiterate, making them have little access to economic opportunities. The dress, hair, and language separate the natives from the rest of the populace. They commonly speak Quichua, although most are bilingual with the second language of spanish, Ecuador’s main language. These people depend on agriculture as their primary means and grow cassava, also known as yuca, which is turned into tapioca. The non native people, often referred to as mestizo follow a more hispanic culture, influenced by amerindian tradition, and occasionally African elements. 90% of this population speak spanish as their first language, and including those who speak spanish as a second language the number increases to 98%. Other languages spoken by the people include Kichwa, and amerindian language, and Awapit, also amerindian. Other spoken languages include A’ingae, Shuar Chicham, Achuar-Shiwiar, Cha’palaachi, Paicoca, and Wao Tededeo. According to the ENISC (Ecuadorian National Institute of Statistics and Census) 91.95% of the country’s people have a religion. Ecuadorian religion is dominated by Roman Catholic by 80.44%. Due to the outbreak of malaria and yellow fever in the coastal region during the 19th century, the highest concentration of people reside in the highlands and valleys of the Sierra regions. Slowly however, people have been migrating slowly back down to the coastal region, because these illnesses are much more controlled. This volcanic mountain is a known landmark, the closest point to space, and definitely an impressive part of Ecuador. Filled with mixtures of sadness, loss, and accomplishment, this mountain attracts people near and far to experience it. Home of rare animals and plant life, and a huge reserve named after this volcanic mass. The mountain topped with gleaming glaciers, that when slowly melt create the means of life for all the surrounding native people, even though they are being overharvested still prevail. The Chimborazo mountain, Earth’s highest mountain and farthest point from Earth, is without question, the crown jewel of Ecuador, and the world.
Mission San Juan Capistrano is a mission like no other. Mission San Juan Capistrano was founded in 1775 and in 1776. Serra’s Chapel was the first permanent building. It was made out of Adobe brick instead of wood. Local native Americans helped build the mission and hang the bells. The people worked for 8 days then stopped. They buried the mission. The people came back the next year to dig out and rebuild the mission. A neat fact about San Juan Capistrano is the brand of their livestock is the letters C,A and P twisted together. San Juan Capistrano is called the jewel of the missions. This unique mission is not an ordinary, everyday mission.
Through the study of the Peruvian society using articles like “The “Problem of the Indian...” and the Problem of the Land” by Jose Carlos Mariátegui and the Peruvian film La Boca del Lobo directed by Francisco Lombardi, it is learned that the identity of Peru is expressed through the Spanish descendants that live in cities or urban areas of Peru. In his essay, Mariátegui expresses that the creation of modern Peru was due to the tenure system in Peru and its Indigenous population. With the analyzation of La Boca del Lobo we will describe the native identity in Peru due to the Spanish treatment of Indians, power in the tenure system of Peru, the Indian Problem expressed by Mariátegui, and the implementation of Benedict Andersons “Imagined Communities”.
Mauna Loa is Earth’s largest volcano and most massive mountain as it takes up nearly half of the flourishing landscape of the island of Hawai’i. This island is actually made up of five volcanoes, Kohala, Mauna Kea, Hualalai, Mauna Loa, and Kilauea, all in such close proximity that they fused together to form one whole island. Mauna Loa is located in the south central area of Hawai’i, in the Hawai’i Volcanoes National Park and its coordinates are 19°5' N, 155°6' W. It is 13,680 ft above sea level, but if one measures from its true base on the ocean floor, it is estimated to be 30,080 feet tall. Its name is quite fitting as it means “Tall Mountain”.
Stone Mountain is an igneous intrusion often referred to as a geological pluton. The granite pluton is part of the Piedmont Plateau region of the Appalachian Mountains and was formed along the same geological fault line that created the Blue Ridge Mountains but is not part of the Blue Ridge chain. Northern and Eastern Georgia have relatively frequent seismic activity with ten quakes recorded in 2013. These quakes occurred at an average depth of 9.6 km which make them less obvious and cause less property damage. This same seismic activity created Stone Mountain 300 million years ago during the last stages of the Alleghenian Orogeny when massive tectonic plate shifting allowed a large mass of magma from beneath the earth’s crust to well up . Flow structure markings on the mountain show the stone was formed underground after several eruption pulses failed to break through and then cooled to form, ultimately creating granite mass that rises 825 feet above ground, extends 9 miles underground and has a circumference of 5 miles at its base, making it the largest exposed dome in the world . Rising 1683 feet above sea level the summit of the dome is bare stone with rock pools and an unobstructed view that extends to Kennesaw Mountain, Amicacola Falls and Mt. Yonah state parks, including a breathtaking view of the Atlanta Skyline.
After the crash, the mangled twin-engine plane rested about 75 yards from the end of the runway in a marshy area. Workers carried away badly burned bodies and laid them nearby. Pieces of the plane were strewn about the crash site.
Lassen Peak, also known as Mount Lassen, is the southernmost active volcano in the Cascade Range. It is part of the Cascade Volcanic Arc which is an arc that covers southwestern British Columbia to northern California. Located in the Shasta Cascade region of Northern California, Lassen rises 2,000 meters above the surrounding terrain and has a volume of 0.5 cubic miles, making it one of the largest lava domes on Earth. It was created on the destroyed northeastern side of now gone Mount Tehama, a stratovolcano that was at least 1,000 feet higher than Lassen Peak.
Honduras has many landforms that differ from beautiful sandy beaches to furious rugged mountains. The highest point above sea level is Cerro Las Minas; it stands 2,870 meters above sea level. There is also the Sierra de la Botija mountain range which is located along the border of Honduras and Nicaragua. There are also many other mountain regions such as Cerro El Pital, Pico Bonito, Montaña Cerro Grande, and the Cerro El Eslabón. These are only a few of the Honduran mountains. Honduras has a lot of mountains and some mountain ranges.
First of all, one of South America’s greatest geological features is the Andes Mountains. The Andes are a major mountain range in Venezuela. The Andes mountain range is the longest mountain range in the world. To be specific, the mountain range is 4,500 miles long and 500 miles wide (Andes). The Andes stretch along the west coast of South America passing through several countries including Venezuela, Columbia, Ecuador, Peru Bolivia, Chile and Argentina. The Andes’ average elevation is 13,000 feet. One might not think this but in some places in the Andes Mountains there is snow and even glaciers. Mount Aconcagua, in Argentina, is the highest elevation of the Andes, at 22,841 feet above sea level. The Himalaya Mountains are the only other mountains that are taller than ...
April 9, 1948, was a tragic day in Colombia’s history. On this day, Jorge Eliécer Gaítán, a candidate for the presidency of Colombia, was assassinated. In the 10 hour period that followed the assassination, angry mobs marched throughout the city of Bogota, looting and burning down over 100 buildings. Before the night would end, nearly 3,000 people would die in the streets. This terrible event in Colombia’s history is today referred to as the Bogotazo. This paper examines some of the underlying reasons contributing to the outbreak of this violence and the events that transpired during the Bogotazo. The paper concludes that the events leading to the violence of the Bogotazo are still present in Colombia today and will hamper its prospects for peace in the future.
Furthermore, some writers believe that the mountain was named by the Spanish. Since the first visitors from Europe were Spanish, Fray Marcos de Niza in 1539. Fray observed that the mountain from the Gila River, but did not either record the mountain in his journal or walk around it. The author of “The Lost Dutchman Mine,” Ely Sims, stated in the beginning chapter of his book that the Spaniards named Superstition Mountain ‘Sierra de espuma’ implying a "mountain of foam." The derivation of this name emerges to be a forest examination map that L.P. Landon drew in 1918. Landon gave the name to a small butte southwest of Superstition Mountain. Sierra Supersticiones became visible on armed forces’ field draft maps of the area as early as May of 1866. The first time it came into view on authorized military map was in 1870 (Ely, 1966).
The Mauna Loa volcano is located in Hawaii and means "Long Mountain" in Hawaiian. It is a giant, basaltic shield volcano. It is one of the largest volcanoes and mountains in the world and has been called the "monarch of mountains". It has an estimated volume of 9,600 cubic miles and takes up half the land of Hawaii. It extends about 120 km starting from the southern tip of the island to the northern region. It is 97 km (60 miles) long, 48 km (30 miles) wide, and is 8,742 km (28,680 miles) high from the base on the sea floor to the top. The slopes are steeper than 12 degrees and about 4 degrees at the top of the volcano. Mauna Loa formed about half a million years ago and in the middle stages of forming into a shield volcano where lava flows to form a sloped and broad flat domed volcanic cone. Along with Mauna Kea, the Mauna Loa volcano is responsible for the creation of the Hawaiian Islands. Mauna Loa has erupted thirty-three times since 1843 and is known as one of the most active volcanoes in the world today. The last eruption was 1984 and lava flowed within 4 miles of the city of Hilo. This shows that it is dangerous to live anywhere near Mauna Loa and that it poses as a threat to anyone living near it because it has a very high possibility of erupting within a very short span of time. Below is a picture of Mauna Loa taken from a bird's eye view.
The United States currently has many volcanoes, particularly in the Cascade Mountain Range, which includes Mount St. Helens, Mount Rainer, and Crater Lake. Volcanoes have three common features such as craters, caldera, and geysers and hot springs. A caldera is a huge depression that is formed after the eruption from the collapse of a partially emptied magma chamber. In the last million years, ten major caldera formed after eruptions, which included Crater Lake in Oregon. Mount Mazama, also known as Crater Lake, was a large composite volcano that was constructed by the episodic growth of many overlapping shield and composite volcanoes, each of which probably was active for a comparatively brief period, and Mount Mazama has not erupted in 7,700
Flight 370 was an international passenger flight that went missing on March 8, 2014. The flight was scheduled in route to Beijing, but it went missing throughout the second day after the plane took off from Kuala National Airport. At approximately 1:21 p.m., the communications and transponder signal were functioning no longer. There were no emergency calls at the time the plane had its last checkpoint. On March 24 at approximately 10p.m.Malaysia Standard Time, officials ceased the search as radio signals picked up debris found throughout a remote Indian Ocean. It is believed that all of the 239 passengers on the plane died (Preimesberger). From protests and outcries, to mourning and fallouts, it is still a distraught event that shocked the world.
For those who like winter sports like skiing and snowboarding, we have just the perfect place- the remote yet very popular mountain resort called Balea Lake.