1.
Cairn
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A cairn is a human-made pile of stones. The word cairn comes from the Scottish Gaelic, càrn, cairns have been and are used for a broad variety of purposes, from prehistoric times to the present. In modern times, cairns are often erected as landmarks, a use they have had since ancient times. Cairns are used as markers in many parts of the world, in uplands, on moorland, on mountaintops, near waterways and on sea cliffs, as well as in barren deserts. They vary in size from small stone markers to entire artificial hills, cairns may be painted or otherwise decorated, whether for increased visibility or for religious reasons. An ancient example is the inuksuk, used by the Inuit, Inupiat, Kalaallit, Yupik, inuksuit are found from Alaska to Greenland. This region, above the Arctic Circle, is dominated by the tundra biome and has areas with few natural landmarks, different types of cairns exist from rough piles of stones to interlocking dry stone round cylinders. The most important cairns commonly used around the world are interlocking stone survey cairns constructed around a central survey mark about every 30 km on the tallest peaks across a nation. These physical survey mark cairn systems by surveyors as the basis for national survey grids to interconnect individual land survey measurements for entire nations, on occasion these permanent interlocking stone cairns were taken down then reconstructed for survey mark for measurements to increase the accuracy of the national survey grid. They can also be used in unpopulated country as emergency location points, for example, the extensive trail network maintained by the DNT, the Norwegian Trekking Association, extensively uses cairns in conjunction with T-painted rock faces to mark trails. Other examples of these can be seen in the fields of Volcanoes National Park to mark several hikes. Placed at regular intervals, a series of cairns can be used to indicate a path across stony or barren terrain, such cairns are often placed at junctions or in places where the trail direction is not obvious. They may also be used to indicate an obscured danger such as a sudden drop, most trail cairns are small, usually being a foot or less in height. However, they may be built taller so as to protrude through a layer of snow, hikers passing by often add a stone, as a small bit of maintenance to counteract the erosive effects of severe weather. North American trail marks are sometimes called ducks or duckies, because they sometimes have a beak pointing in the direction of the route. The expression two rocks do not make a duck reminds hikers that just one rock resting upon another could be the result of accident or nature rather than intentional trail marking. The building of cairns for recreational purposes along trails, to ones personal passage through the area. This distracts from cairns used as navigational guides, and also conflicts with the Leave No Trace ethic
2.
Summit
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A summit is a point on a surface that is higher in elevation than all points immediately adjacent to it. Mathematically, a summit is a maximum in elevation. The topographic terms acme, apex, peak, and zenith are synonymous, the UIAA definition is that a summit is independent if it has a prominence of 30 metres or more, it is a mountain if it has a prominence of at least 300 metres. This can be summarised as follows, A pyramidal peak is an exaggerated form produced by ice erosion of a mountain top, Summit may also refer to the highest point along a line, trail, or route. In many parts of the western United States, the term refers to the highest point along a road, highway. For example, the highest point along Interstate 80 in California is referred to as Donner Summit while the highest point on Interstate 5 is Siskiyou Mountain Summit, geoid Hill List of highest mountains Maxima and minima Nadir Summit accordance Peak finder
3.
Topographic prominence
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It is a measure of the independence of a summit. A peaks key col is a point on this contour line. By convention, the prominence of Mount Everest, the Earths highest mountain, is taken to equal the elevation of its summit above sea level, if the peaks prominence is P metres, to get from the summit to any higher terrain one must descend at least P metres. Together with the convention for Mount Everest, this implies that the prominence of any island or continental highpoint is equal to its elevation above sea level, for every ridge connecting the peak to higher terrain, find the lowest point on the ridge. The key col is defined as the highest of these cols, the prominence is the difference between the elevation of the peak and the elevation of the key col. The following mental exercise may illustrate the meaning of topographic prominence, imagine you are standing at the top of a peak and imagine that an imaginary sea level rises to your feet. Now slowly lower the sea level and an imaginary island appears beneath your feet. Your island will grow and will merge with other islands that emerge, the parent peak may be either close or far from the subject peak. The summit of Mount Everest is the parent peak of Aconcagua at a distance of 17,755 km, the key col may also be close or far from the subject peak. The key col for Aconcagua is the Bering Strait at a distance of 13,655 km, the key col for the South Summit of Mount Everest is about 100 m distant. Prominence is interesting to many mountaineers because it is a measurement that is strongly correlated with the subjective significance of a summit. Peaks with low prominences are either subsidiary tops of some higher summit or relatively insignificant independent summits, peaks with high prominences tend to be the highest points around and are likely to have extraordinary views. Only summits with a sufficient degree of prominence are regarded as independent mountains, for example, the worlds second-highest mountain is K2. While Mount Everests South Summit is taller than K2, it is not considered an independent mountain because it is a subsummit of the main summit, many lists of mountains take topographic prominence as a criterion for inclusion, or cutoff. John and Anne Nuttalls The Mountains of England and Wales uses a cutoff of 15 m, in the contiguous United States, the famous list of fourteeners uses a cutoff of 300 ft /91 m. Also in the U. S.2000 feet of prominence has become a threshold that signifies that a peak has major stature. This generates lists of peaks ranked by prominence, which are different from lists ranked by elevation. Such lists tend to emphasize isolated high peaks, such as range or island high points, one advantage of a prominence-ranked list is that it needs no cutoff, since a peak with high prominence is automatically an independent peak
4.
Geographic coordinate system
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A geographic coordinate system is a coordinate system used in geography that enables every location on Earth to be specified by a set of numbers, letters or symbols. The coordinates are chosen such that one of the numbers represents a vertical position. A common choice of coordinates is latitude, longitude and elevation, to specify a location on a two-dimensional map requires a map projection. The invention of a coordinate system is generally credited to Eratosthenes of Cyrene. Ptolemy credited him with the adoption of longitude and latitude. Ptolemys 2nd-century Geography used the prime meridian but measured latitude from the equator instead. Mathematical cartography resumed in Europe following Maximus Planudes recovery of Ptolemys text a little before 1300, in 1884, the United States hosted the International Meridian Conference, attended by representatives from twenty-five nations. Twenty-two of them agreed to adopt the longitude of the Royal Observatory in Greenwich, the Dominican Republic voted against the motion, while France and Brazil abstained. France adopted Greenwich Mean Time in place of local determinations by the Paris Observatory in 1911, the latitude of a point on Earths surface is the angle between the equatorial plane and the straight line that passes through that point and through the center of the Earth. Lines joining points of the same latitude trace circles on the surface of Earth called parallels, as they are parallel to the equator, the north pole is 90° N, the south pole is 90° S. The 0° parallel of latitude is designated the equator, the plane of all geographic coordinate systems. The equator divides the globe into Northern and Southern Hemispheres, the longitude of a point on Earths surface is the angle east or west of a reference meridian to another meridian that passes through that point. All meridians are halves of great ellipses, which converge at the north and south poles, the prime meridian determines the proper Eastern and Western Hemispheres, although maps often divide these hemispheres further west in order to keep the Old World on a single side. The antipodal meridian of Greenwich is both 180°W and 180°E, the combination of these two components specifies the position of any location on the surface of Earth, without consideration of altitude or depth. The grid formed by lines of latitude and longitude is known as a graticule, the origin/zero point of this system is located in the Gulf of Guinea about 625 km south of Tema, Ghana. To completely specify a location of a feature on, in, or above Earth. Earth is not a sphere, but a shape approximating a biaxial ellipsoid. It is nearly spherical, but has an equatorial bulge making the radius at the equator about 0. 3% larger than the radius measured through the poles, the shorter axis approximately coincides with the axis of rotation
5.
County Kerry
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County Kerry is a county in Ireland. It is located in the South-West Region and is part of the province of Munster. It is named after the Ciarraige who lived in part of the present county, Kerry County Council is the local authority for the county and Tralee serves as the county town. The population of the county was 147,554 in 2016, Kerry is the fifth-largest of the 32 counties of Ireland by area and the 15th-largest by population. It is the second-largest of Munsters six counties by area, uniquely, it is bordered by only two other counties, County Limerick to the east and County Cork to the south-east. The diocesan see is Killarney, which is one of Irelands most famous tourist destinations, the Lakes of Killarney, an area of outstanding natural beauty are located in Killarney National Park. The tip of the Dingle Peninsula is the most westerly point of Ireland, there are nine historic baronies in the county. While baronies continue to be officially defined units, they are no longer used for administrative purposes. Their official status is illustrated by Placenames Orders made since 2003, the county is bounded on the west by the Atlantic Ocean and on the north by the River Shannon. Just off the coast are a number of islands, including the Blasket Islands, Valentia Island, skellig Michael is a World Heritage Site, famous for the medieval monastery clinging to the islands cliffs. The county contains the extreme west point of Ireland, Dunmore Head on the Dingle Peninsula, or including islands, Tearaght Island, the most westerly inhabited area of Ireland is Dún Chaoin, on the Dingle Peninsula. The River Feale, the River Laune and the Roughty River flow through Kerry, the North Atlantic Current, part of the Gulf Stream, flows north past Kerry and the west coast of Ireland, resulting in milder temperatures than would otherwise be expected at the 52 North latitude. This means that plants such as the strawberry tree and tree ferns, not normally found in northern Europe. Because of the area and the prevailing southwesterly winds, Kerry is among the regions with the highest rainfall in Ireland. Owing to its location, there has been a reporting station on Valentia for many centuries. The Irish record for rainfall in one day is 243.5 mm, in 1986 the remnants of Hurricane Charley crossed over Kerry as an extratropical storm causing extensive rainfall, flooding and damage. Kerry means the people of Ciar which was the name of the tribe who lived in part of the present county. The legendary founder of the tribe was Ciar, son of Fergus mac Róich, in Old Irish Ciar meant black or dark brown, and the word continues in use in modern Irish as an adjective describing a dark complexion
6.
Republic of Ireland
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Ireland, also known as the Republic of Ireland, is a sovereign state in north-western Europe occupying about five-sixths of the island of Ireland. The capital and largest city is Dublin, which is located on the part of the island. The state shares its land border with Northern Ireland, a part of the United Kingdom. It is otherwise surrounded by the Atlantic Ocean, with the Celtic Sea to the south, Saint Georges Channel to the south-east, and it is a unitary, parliamentary republic. The head of government is the Taoiseach, who is elected by the Dáil and appointed by the President, the state was created as the Irish Free State in 1922 as a result of the Anglo-Irish Treaty. It was officially declared a republic in 1949, following the Republic of Ireland Act 1948, Ireland became a member of the United Nations in December 1955. It joined the European Economic Community, the predecessor of the European Union, after joining the EEC, Ireland enacted a series of liberal economic policies that resulted in rapid economic growth. The country achieved considerable prosperity between the years of 1995 and 2007, which known as the Celtic Tiger period. This was halted by a financial crisis that began in 2008. However, as the Irish economy was the fastest growing in the EU in 2015, Ireland is again quickly ascending league tables comparing wealth and prosperity internationally. For example, in 2015, Ireland was ranked as the joint sixth most developed country in the world by the United Nations Human Development Index and it also performs well in several national performance metrics, including freedom of the press, economic freedom and civil liberties. Ireland is a member of the European Union and is a member of the Council of Europe. The 1922 state, comprising 26 of the 32 counties of Ireland, was styled, the Constitution of Ireland, adopted in 1937, provides that the name of the State is Éire, or, in the English language, Ireland. Section 2 of the Republic of Ireland Act 1948 states, It is hereby declared that the description of the State shall be the Republic of Ireland. The 1948 Act does not name the state as Republic of Ireland, because to have done so would have put it in conflict with the Constitution. The government of the United Kingdom used the name Eire, and, from 1949, Republic of Ireland, for the state, as well as Ireland, Éire or the Republic of Ireland, the state is also referred to as the Republic, Southern Ireland or the South. In an Irish republican context it is referred to as the Free State or the 26 Counties. From the Act of Union on 1 January 1801, until 6 December 1922, during the Great Famine, from 1845 to 1849, the islands population of over 8 million fell by 30%
7.
Mountain range
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A mountain range is a geographic area containing numerous geologically related mountains. A mountain system or system of ranges, sometimes is used to combine several geological features that are geographically related. Mountain ranges are usually segmented by highlands or mountain passes and valleys, individual mountains within the same mountain range do not necessarily have the same geologic structure or petrology. They may be a mix of different orogenic expressions and terranes, for example thrust sheets, uplifted blocks, fold mountains, most geologically young mountain ranges on the Earths land surface are associated with either the Pacific Ring of Fire or the Alpide Belt. The Andes is 7,000 kilometres long and is considered the worlds longest mountain system. The Alpide belt includes Indonesia and southeast Asia, through the Himalaya, the belt also includes other European and Asian mountain ranges. The Himalayas contain the highest mountains in the world, including Mount Everest, mountain ranges outside of these two systems include the Arctic Cordillera, the Urals, the Appalachians, the Scandinavian Mountains, the Altai Mountains and the Hijaz Mountains. If the definition of a range is stretched to include underwater mountains. The mountain systems of the earth are characterized by a tree structure, the sub-range relationship is often expressed as a parent-child relationship. For example, the White Mountains of New Hampshire and the Blue Ridge Mountains are sub-ranges of the Appalachian Mountains, equivalently, the Appalachians are the parent of the White Mountains and Blue Ridge Mountains, and the White Mountains and the Blue Ridge Mountains are children of the Appalachians. The position of mountains influences climate, such as rain or snow, when air masses move up and over mountains, the air cools producing orographic precipitation. As the air descends on the side, it warms again and is drier. Often, a shadow will affect the leeward side of a range. Mountain ranges are constantly subjected to forces which work to tear them down. Erosion is at work while the mountains are being uplifted and long after until the mountains are reduced to low hills, rivers are traditionally believed to be the principle erosive factor on mountain ranges, with their ability of bedrock incision and sediment transport. The rugged topography of a range is the product of erosion. The basins adjacent to a mountain range are filled with sediments which are buried and turned into sedimentary rock. The early Cenozoic uplift of the Rocky Mountains of Colorado provides an example and this mass of rock was removed as the range was actively undergoing uplift
8.
Macgillycuddy's Reeks
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MacGillycuddys Reeks is a mountain range in County Kerry, Republic of Ireland. Stretching slightly over 19 km, it includes the highest peaks in Ireland, the highest of these is Carrauntoohil, followed by Beenkeragh and Caher. The range also includes many other Hewitts, the mountains, part of the Armorican Highlands, are of glacial-carved Devonian sandstone and are on the Iveragh Peninsula near the Lakes of Killarney. The name of the dates to the 18th century. It is derived from the family or clan name Mac Giolla Mochuda who are a sept of the OSullivans. The clan chief, McGillycuddy of the Reeks, owned land in part of Munster for a long time prior. The word reek is a Hiberno-English version of the English word rick, MacGillycuddys Reeks is also the name of a song on Warren Zevons album My Rides Here. The song is set on the Iveragh Peninsula and also mentions the Killarney shore and it was co-written by Ulster poet Paul Muldoon. List of mountains in Ireland List of Irish counties by highest point McGillycuddy of the Reeks* MacGillycuddys Reeks mountain range Walking Route - Map, Guide and GPS at ActiveMe. ie
9.
Irish grid reference system
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The Irish grid reference system is a system of geographic grid references commonly used in Ireland. The Irish grid lies within the British grid, but uses a different co-ordinate system with a meridian more suited to the westerly location, in general, neither Ireland nor Great Britain uses latitude or longitude in describing internal geographic locations. Instead grid reference systems are in common usage, the national grid referencing system was devised by the Ordnance Survey, and is heavily used in their survey data, and in maps based on those surveys. Additionally grid references are commonly quoted in publications and data sources. The Ordnance Survey of Ireland has implemented a new system for Ireland called Irish Transverse Mercator, or ITM. In both systems, the origin is at 53°30 N, 8° W — a point in Lough Ree, close to the western shore. The area of Ireland is divided into 25 squares, measuring 100 by 100 km, the squares are numbered A to Z with I being omitted. Seven of the squares do not actually cover any land in Ireland, within each square, eastings and northings from the origin of the square are given numerically. For example, G0305 means square G,3 km east,5 km north, coordinates may also be given relative to the origin of the entire 500 by 500 km grid. For example, the location of the Spire of Dublin on OConnell Street may be given as 315904,234671 as well as O1590434671, coordinates in this format must never be truncated, because, for example,31590,23467 is also a valid location. Ordnance Survey Ireland,185 years of innovation in mapping, archived from the original on September 11,2009. The Irish Grid - A Description of the Co-ordinate Reference System used in Ireland PDF on the Irish Grid from OSi, history and overview of the system, from OSI OSI online coordinate converter tool Clickable webmap that shows Irish grid references
10.
Ireland
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Ireland is an island in the North Atlantic. It is separated from Great Britain to its east by the North Channel, the Irish Sea, Ireland is the second-largest island of the British Isles, the third-largest in Europe, and the twentieth-largest on Earth. Politically, Ireland is divided between the Republic of Ireland, which covers five-sixths of the island, and Northern Ireland, in 2011, the population of Ireland was about 6.4 million, ranking it the second-most populous island in Europe after Great Britain. Just under 4.6 million live in the Republic of Ireland, the islands geography comprises relatively low-lying mountains surrounding a central plain, with several navigable rivers extending inland. The island has lush vegetation, a product of its mild, thick woodlands covered the island until the Middle Ages. As of 2013, the amount of land that is wooded in Ireland is about 11% of the total, there are twenty-six extant mammal species native to Ireland. The Irish climate is moderate and classified as oceanic. As a result, winters are milder than expected for such a northerly area, however, summers are cooler than those in Continental Europe. Rainfall and cloud cover are abundant, the earliest evidence of human presence in Ireland is dated at 10,500 BC. Gaelic Ireland had emerged by the 1st century CE, the island was Christianised from the 5th century onward. Following the Norman invasion in the 12th century, England claimed sovereignty over Ireland, however, English rule did not extend over the whole island until the 16th–17th century Tudor conquest, which led to colonisation by settlers from Britain. In the 1690s, a system of Protestant English rule was designed to materially disadvantage the Catholic majority and Protestant dissenters, with the Acts of Union in 1801, Ireland became a part of the United Kingdom. Northern Ireland saw much civil unrest from the late 1960s until the 1990s and this subsided following a political agreement in 1998. In 1973 the Republic of Ireland joined the European Economic Community while the United Kingdom, Irish culture has had a significant influence on other cultures, especially in the fields of literature. Alongside mainstream Western culture, an indigenous culture exists, as expressed through Gaelic games, Irish music. The culture of the island shares many features with that of Great Britain, including the English language, and sports such as association football, rugby, horse racing. The name Ireland derives from Old Irish Eriu and this in turn derives from Proto-Celtic *Iveriu, which is also the source of Latin Hibernia. Iveriu derives from a root meaning fat, prosperous, during the last glacial period, and up until about 9000 years ago, most of Ireland was covered with ice, most of the time
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