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Hill Height to be Mountain
Name: Justine J.
Status: Student
Age: 16
Location: N/A
Country: N/A
Date: August 8, 2004
Question:
How tall does a hill have to be to be considered a
mountain? What does the elevation have to be to be considered a
mountain?
Replies:
Thanks for your question Justine... One of the gravest complaints I
had about geologic terminology during my undergraduate education was
that it seemed, at times, to be full of words that were either very
ill-defined or had any number of meanings; "mountain" is one of those
words. As it turns out, when speaking technically about things like
mountains or mountain ranges, geologists typically prefer to use
other, more descriptive terms that convey much more information with
less effort. Using very technical language is of great advantage to
scientists because it is a more efficient means of communicating very
complex ideas to other scientists. Unfortunately, this technical
language is also one reason that the general public is somewhat
uncomfortable with science.
As far as geologists are concerned, you could call just about any sort
of positive topographic feature a mountain and probably get away with
it (within reason, of course). Geographers, on the other hand, who's
primary interests often concern topographic anomalies like mountains
and basins, usually reserve the term "mountain" for a positive
topographic feature which rises to a height of at least 305 meters
above the surrounding terrain. Anything less than 305 meters in
height is considered a hill, and anything considerably less than 305
meters is termed a "hillock." Why 305 meters is the magic number, I
do not know. I would guess that it was chosen as the result of a
statistical study of hill/mountain heights and was consequently made
the standard by which all hills/mountains would be judged.
Although I believe having strict definitions like this are very
valuable, I must defend geologists (since I am one of them) by saying
that we are usually more interested in how and why a mountain formed as
opposed to how high it is. Mountains can form in several ways,
including continental collision (like the Appalachian Mountains),
volcanism (like the Andes Mountains), and glacial deposition (like
large drumlins and moraines in the Great Lakes region). On a
humorous note (if you think this kind of thing is funny), one of the
tallest, if not "the" tallest mountain in Michigan (Upper Peninsula)
is actually a human-made mountain composed of broken, useless rock
called "tailings" that the iron-ore mining industry has been piling up
in the same place for decades. I can laugh at it. I used to live
there.
Scott J. Badham
Department of Geology and Geophysics
University of Wyoming
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