One of the farthest places from Michigan that I have lived for over a month is Venezuela. Though I was born in Winfield, Illinois, I grew up and lived in Venezuela for most of my life. My parents were missionaries in Puerto Ordaz, located in the northeast, and Caracas, the capital, for fifteen years (from 1988-2003). My grandparents, now retired, were missionaries in Venezuela for forty years. In 2004, when I was eleven years old, I went to my first American school here in Grand Rapids. After a year of raising support, my family moved to Italy. I repeated fifth grade, and finished middle school at an International school in Mestre, Italy. After that, for high school I attended a boarding school in southern Germany. Right now, my parents and younger brothers are at home in Italy. Even though Italy is the country that is farther away from Michigan, I decided to write about five significant geological features in Venezuela, and the geologic history and current geology.
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 ...
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Geology and Mineral Resource Assessment of the Venezuelan Guayana Shield. (n.d.). USGS. Retrieved November 12, 2013, from http://pubs.usgs.gov/bul/2062/report.pdf
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Marshak, S. (2009) Essentials of Geology, 3rd ed. New York: W.W. Norton & Company, ch. 11, p. 298-320.
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.
Peru has three main drainage systems. One comprises about 50 torrential streams that rise in the sierra and descend steeply to the coastal plain. The second comprises the tributaries of the Amazon River in the mountain region. The third principal feature is Lake Titicaca, which drains into Lake Poopo in Bolivia thought the Desaguadero River
In the west is a great basin, or depression, containing two lakes, Nicaragua, the largest in Central America, and Managua. The two are connected by the Tipitapa River. A chain of volcanoes, which are a contributory cause of local earthquakes, rise between the lakes and the Pacific coast. In the east, the Caribbean coastal plain known as the Costa de mosquitoes (Mosquito Coast) extends some 45 mi. inland and is partly overgrown with rain forest.
United States Geologic Survey. USGS: Your Source for Science You Can Use. Ed. Marcia McNutt. The United States Department of the Interior, 2000. Web. 20 June 2010. .
“South America.” World Geography. Ed. Sumner, Ray. Vol. 3. Pasadena, California: Salem Press, 2001. Print.
Wood and Kienle, 1990, Volcanoes of North America: United States and Canada: Cambridge University Press, 354 p., p. 158-160, Contribution by Patrick Pringle.
Volcanism is a major part of the Galapagos and their formation. The island chain is positioned on the Nazca Plate, which is subducting beneath the South American Plate at a geologically rapid pace of 2.5 inches per year. In addition, this Nazca Plate is located directly on top of the Galapagos Hotspot. It is here that mantle plumes melt Earth’s crust, creating volcanoes as a product. The oldest island was first shaped by this ...
That has a passage to the underground molten seas of rocks , when the pressure increases on this molten seas it causes eruption gases and molten rocks shoot up through a hole in the top of the mountain and fill the air with lava fragments .
The geology, its history, and the presence of past civilizations contribute to much of the significance of Mesa Verde National Park. The interconnectedness of these aspects should also be noted. If not for the weathering processes and changes in sea level this formation would not exist. Without it, the ancient people would not have been able to reside within Mesa Verde. This National Park now serves as a tool to help conserve the remains of these past civilizations as well as to help educate today’s society on the significance behind this astonishing geologic
Blakey, R. C. (1996). Geologic history of western us. Informally published manuscript, Northern Arizona Univ, Flagstaff, AZ, Retrieved from http://www.jan.ucc.nau.edu
"Mount Shasta." USGS: Volcano Hazards Program - Mount Shasta. N.p., n.d. Web. 01 May 2014.
Stories about volcanoes are captivating. Myths come in different versions, but all of them are capable of capturing yours, and everybody’s imagination.
“On a globe it looks like a swollen California and within that space [there] are 20,000 foot peaks, the world’s deepest canyon […], unmapped Amazon jungle and the driest desert on earth,” Mark Adams explains the descriptions of Machu Picchu. (Engineering) The inhabitants in Machu Picchu, the mountain established in Peru, adapted to its’ geography by building a stable foundation, communicating with different strategies and providing adequate fresh water for the community. Machu Picchu is considered one of the most beautiful and enigmatic ancient sites making it one of the biggest tourist attractions. It is located in an isolated area where it is invisible from below and surrounded by agricultural terraces providing sufficient resources to feed the population. It is perched 8,000 feet above sea level to the right in the Peruvian Andes. (Lewis) What makes Machu Picchu so outstanding is that it is the only Inca site that’s still relatively intact.