Mountains and plains

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Mountains and plains

Each of us observed in nature how water erodes the soil, digging a pothole or ravine, how the wind drives loose sand, how a stone avalanche breaks off a slope or a sea wave destroys the shore. Everyone is used to such small changes in the Earth’s surface. But the Earth’s largest landforms - its continents, vast plains, grandiose mountain systems and deep-sea oceanic depressions - seem to us to be unshakable, durable and stable. However, the entire terrain of the Earth is changing, albeit very slowly. The largest land relief forms - mountain ranges, plains, lowlands - are formed by deep geological processes that have formed the face of the Earth for billions of years. See here Pyrenees characteristics

Great Plains of North America

Plains and mountains are the two main types of terrain relief. Plains are land spaces with a calm, flat or hilly relief. On land, plains occupy about 65% of the area. The most even continent is Africa, and Asia, on the contrary, is the only part of the world where there are more mountains than plains: more than half of its territory is occupied by the largest and highest mountain systems of the Himalayas, Hindu Kush, Karakoram, Tibet, Pamir, Tien Shan, Altai, Sayan. In Europe, South and North America, Australia, plains spread over most of their area.

Many mountain systems in ancient times were the seabed. This is evidenced by sedimentary rocks - limestones, in which the fossilized remains of extinct marine animals are sometimes found.

Mountains are usually called plots of the earth’s surface, elevated high above sea level or the neighboring plain. Mountains are very large and complex landforms, they have their own hierarchy. The most grandiose rock formations on Earth are mountain belts. The Cordillera mountain belt stretches across two continents: along the western coast of North and South America. It consists of the Cordillera mountain systems of North America and the Andes of South America, which are of common origin. In turn, in mountain systems, mountain countries, chains and ranges are distinguished. Individual peaks are often called peaks. Some mountainous regions have a flat topography; such highland plains are called a plateau, which means “flat” in French.