1.
Summit
–
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
2.
Topographic isolation
–
The topographic isolation of a summit is the minimum great-circle distance to a point of equal elevation, representing a radius of dominance in which the peak is the highest point. It can be calculated for small hills and islands as well as for major mountain peaks, the following sortable table lists the Earths 40 most topographically isolated summits. The nearest peak to Germanys highest mountain, the 2, 962-metre-high Zugspitze, the distance between the Zugspitze and this contour is 25.8 km, the Zugspitze is thus the highest peak for a radius of 25.8 km around. Its isolation is thus 25.8 km, because there are no higher mountains than Mount Everest, it has no definitive isolation. Many sources list its isolation as the circumference of the earth over the poles or – questionably, after Mount Everest the Aconcagua, highest mountain of the American continents, has the greatest isolation of all mountains. There is no land for 16,534 kilometres when its height is first exceeded by Tirich Mir in the Hindu Kush. Mont Blanc is the highest mountain of the Alps, the geographically nearest higher mountains are all in the Caucasus. The Kukurtlu, which rises near the Elbrus, is the peak for Mont Blanc. com Canadian Mountain Encyclopedia peakbagger. com peaklist. org peakware. com World Mountain Encyclopedia summitpost. org
3.
Norway
–
The Antarctic Peter I Island and the sub-Antarctic Bouvet Island are dependent territories and thus not considered part of the Kingdom. Norway also lays claim to a section of Antarctica known as Queen Maud Land, until 1814, the kingdom included the Faroe Islands, Greenland, and Iceland. It also included Isle of Man until 1266, Shetland and Orkney until 1468, Norway has a total area of 385,252 square kilometres and a population of 5,258,317. The country shares a long border with Sweden. Norway is bordered by Finland and Russia to the north-east, Norway has an extensive coastline, facing the North Atlantic Ocean and the Barents Sea. King Harald V of the Dano-German House of Glücksburg is the current King of Norway, erna Solberg became Prime Minister in 2013, replacing Jens Stoltenberg. A constitutional monarchy, Norway divides state power between the Parliament, the Cabinet and the Supreme Court, as determined by the 1814 Constitution, the kingdom is established as a merger of several petty kingdoms. By the traditional count from the year 872, the kingdom has existed continuously for 1,144 years, Norway has both administrative and political subdivisions on two levels, counties and municipalities. The Sámi people have an amount of self-determination and influence over traditional territories through the Sámi Parliament. Norway maintains close ties with the European Union and the United States, the country maintains a combination of market economy and a Nordic welfare model with universal health care and a comprehensive social security system. Norway has extensive reserves of petroleum, natural gas, minerals, lumber, seafood, the petroleum industry accounts for around a quarter of the countrys gross domestic product. On a per-capita basis, Norway is the worlds largest producer of oil, the country has the fourth-highest per capita income in the world on the World Bank and IMF lists. On the CIAs GDP per capita list which includes territories and some regions, from 2001 to 2006, and then again from 2009 to 2017, Norway had the highest Human Development Index ranking in the world. It also has the highest inequality-adjusted ranking, Norway ranks first on the World Happiness Report, the OECD Better Life Index, the Index of Public Integrity and the Democracy Index. Norway has two names, Noreg in Nynorsk and Norge in Bokmål. The name Norway comes from the Old English word Norðrveg mentioned in 880, meaning way or way leading to the north. In contrasting with suðrvegar southern way for Germany, and austrvegr eastern way for the Baltic, the Anglo-Saxon of Britain also referred to the kingdom of Norway in 880 as Norðmanna land. This was the area of Harald Fairhair, the first king of Norway, and because of him
4.
Mountain range
–
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
5.
Jotunheimen
–
Jotunheimen is a mountainous area of roughly 3,500 km² in southern Norway and is part of the long range known as the Scandinavian Mountains. The 29 highest mountains in Norway are all in Jotunheimen, including the very highest - Galdhøpiggen, Jotunheimen straddles the border between the counties of Oppland and Sogn og Fjordane. Jotunheimen contains Jotunheimen National Park, which was established in 1980, the Hurrungane mountain range is also inside the national park with the sharpest peaks in Jotunheimen. Adjacent to the park border is Utladalen Nature Reserve which covers the Utladalen valley. The image from Gjende shows a cliff trailing down into the lake, at its base there is a popular guest house called Memurubu. The picture is taken from Gjendesheim, a point for hiking into the mountain range. There is a popular trail along Besseggen that follows the edge of the mountainous range to the right. There is a National Tourist Route, the Sognefjell Road, from Skjolden to Lom and another road and this was later changed to Jotunheimen by the poet Aasmund Olavsson Vinje in 1862 - this name/form was directly inspired by the name Jötunheimr in Norse mythology. The Jotunheimen shoe was discovered in August 2006, archaeologists estimate that the leather shoe was made between 1800 and 1100 BCE, making it the oldest article of clothing discovered in Scandinavia. It was discovered along with several arrows and a wooden spade, eidsbugarden Prinsehytta Tourism in Norway Bjørn G. Andersen Jens Esmark Jotunheimen website Tilltopps - Hiking in Jotunheimen. Photos of Jotunheimen Map Sognefjell Road Jotunheimen in pictures The Jotunheimen Mountains - the official guide to Norway
6.
Geography of Norway
–
Norway has a long land border with Sweden to the east, a shorter one with Finland in the northeast and a still shorter border with Russia in the far northeast. Norway has an elongated shape, one of the longest and most rugged coastlines in the world. The mainland covers 13° latitude, from 58°N to more than 71°N, the country-length chain of peaks is geologically continuous with the mountains of Scotland, Ireland and, crossing the Atlantic Ocean, the Appalachian Mountains of North America. Geologists hold that all formed a single range prior to the breakup of the ancient supercontinent Pangaea. Virtually the entire country was covered with an ice sheet during the last ice age. The movement of the ice carved out valleys, and when the ice melted. The land is still rebounding from the weight of the ice. Rebound is greatest in the part of the country and the inner part of the long fjords. This is a process, and for thousands of years following the end of the ice age. The sea reached what is today an elevation of 221 m in Oslo,25 m in Stavanger,5 m near Stad,180 m in Trondheim,50 m in Tromsø and 75 m in Kirkenes. This old seabed is now among the best agricultural land in the country, the glaciers in the higher mountain areas today are not remnants of the large ice sheet of the ice age, their origins are more recent. The regional climate was up to 1-3 °C warmer in 7000 BC to 3000 BC in the Holocene climatic optimum, as a result of the ice carving, Sognefjorden is the worlds second deepest fjord and Hornindalsvatnet is the deepest lake in Europe. With Svalbard and Jan Mayen included, the area is larger than Japan. Land boundaries, total,2,515 kmborder countries, Finland 729 km, Sweden 1,619 km, Russia 196 km. The EEZ along the mainland makes up 878575 km2, the Jan Mayen EEZ makes up 293049 km2, the Scandinavian Mountains are the most defining feature of the country. Starting with Setesdalsheiene north of the southern Skagerrak coast, the mountains go north, comprising parts of the country. This part includes Hardangervidda, Jotunheimen, Sognefjell and Trollheimen in the north, with glaciers, such as Jostedalsbreen, Folgefonna. The mountain chain swings eastwards south of Trondheim, with such as Dovrefjell and Rondane, and reaches to the border with Sweden
7.
Scandinavia
–
Scandinavia /ˌskændᵻˈneɪviə/ is a historical and cultural region in Northern Europe characterized by a common ethnocultural North Germanic heritage and mutually intelligible North Germanic languages. The term Scandinavia always includes the three kingdoms of Denmark, Norway and Sweden, the remote Norwegian islands of Svalbard and Jan Mayen are usually not seen as a part of Scandinavia, nor is Greenland, an overseas territory of Denmark. This looser definition almost equates to that of the Nordic countries, in Nordic languages, only Denmark, Norway and Sweden are commonly included in the definition of Scandinavia. In English usage, Scandinavia sometimes refers to the geographical area, the name Scandinavia originally referred vaguely to the formerly Danish, now Swedish, region Scania. Icelanders and the Faroese are to a significant extent descended from the Norse, Finland is mainly populated by Finns, with a minority of approximately 5% of Swedish speakers. A small minority of Sami people live in the north of Scandinavia. The Danish, Norwegian and Swedish languages form a continuum and are known as the Scandinavian languages—all of which are considered mutually intelligible with one another. Faroese and Icelandic, sometimes referred to as insular Scandinavian languages, are intelligible in continental Scandinavian languages only to a limited extent, Finnish and Meänkieli are closely related to each other and more distantly to the Sami languages, but are entirely unrelated to the Scandinavian languages. Apart from these, German, Yiddish and Romani are recognized minority languages in Scandinavia, the southern and by far most populous regions of Scandinavia have a temperate climate. Scandinavia extends north of the Arctic Circle, but has mild weather for its latitude due to the Gulf Stream. Much of the Scandinavian mountains have a tundra climate. There are many lakes and moraines, legacies of the last glacial period, Scandinavia usually refers to Denmark, Norway, and Sweden. Some sources argue for the inclusion of the Faroe Islands, Finland and Iceland, though that broader region is known by the countries concerned as Norden. Before this time, the term Scandinavia was familiar mainly to classical scholars through Pliny the Elders writings, and was used vaguely for Scania, as a political term, Scandinavia was first used by students agitating for Pan-Scandinavianism in the 1830s. After a visit to Sweden, Andersen became a supporter of early political Scandinavism, the term is often defined according to the conventions of the cultures that lay claim to the term in their own use. More precisely, and subject to no dispute, is that Finland is included in the broader term Nordic countries, various promotional agencies of the Nordic countries in the United States serve to promote market and tourism interests in the region. The official tourist boards of Scandinavia sometimes cooperate under one umbrella, Norways government entered one year later. All five Nordic governments participate in the joint promotional efforts in the United States through the Scandinavian Tourist Board of North America, Scandinavia can thus be considered a subset of the Nordic countries
8.
Gudbrandsdalen
–
Gudbrandsdalen is a valley and traditional district in the Norwegian county of Oppland. The valley is oriented in a direction from Lillehammer and the lake of Mjøsa. The river of Gudbrandsdalslågen flows through the valley, starting from Lesjaskogsvatnet, the Otta river flowing through Otta valley is a major tributary to Lågen. The valleys of the rivers such as Otta and Gausa are usuall regarded as part of the Gudbrand Valley. The total area of the valley is calculated from the areas of the related municipalities, together with Glomma river and Østerdalen, Lågen and the Gudbrand Valley forms Norways largest drainage system covering major parts of East Norway. The Gudbrand Valley is home to Dovre Line and the E6 road, the valley is divided into three parts, Norddalen, Midtdalen, and Sørdalen. The valley has two courts, north and south. Until 2016 the valley was also a police district, the main character in Henrik Ibsens play Peer Gynt was inspired by a real or legendary person living in the valley in the 18th or 17th century. Ibsen travelled through the valley in 1862 and collected stories, legends. The name Gudbrandsdalen means the valley/dale of Gudbrand, Gudbrand is an old male name compounded of guð, god and brandr, sword. Dale-Gudbrand was the name of the first ruler of the valley, Gudbrand Valley includes the most arid area in Norway. At Skjåk the average precipitation is only 278 mm. Gudbrand Valley sits in the rain shadow of the mountains West, North. In July 1789 the Storofsen flood disaster occurred and Gudbrandsdalslågen overflooded and this is the largest flood recorded in Norway and the valley was particularly affected. About 3000 houses were damaged and some thousand livestock drowned. Lågen rose up to 7 meters above its level and covered most of the valley floor. A number of farmers abandoned their farms and settled in Målselv. The second largest flood occurred in the summer of 1995 and again the valley floor was covered by water. After Storofsen the valley upstream from Sel church changed into bogs and shallow lakes because stone
9.
Southern Norway
–
Southern Norway is the geographical region along the Skagerrak coast of southern Norway. The region is an informal description since it not have any governmental function. It roughly corresponds to the old petty kingdom of Agder as well as the two counties of Vest-Agder and Aust-Agder. The total combined area of Vest-Agder and Aust-Agder counties is 16,493 square kilometres, the name is relatively new, having first been used in Norway around 1900. The region includes areas along the Skagerrak and extends inland to the Setesdalsheiene mountains. There are many large valleys running from the mountains to the south, the highest point in the region is Sæbyggjenuten at 1,507 m. Sørlandet refers to the region along the Skaggerak in southeastern Norway and this name should not be confused with the Norwegian term Sør-Norge which literally means South Norway. This region was historically called Agder and it was a petty kingdom centuries ago, the name Agder was known in Old Norse as Agðir, and is assumed to be connected to the word ǫgd. Southern Norway is the youngest of the old regions within Norway. The name Sørlandet was first used by the author Vilhelm Krag, Krag proposed that Sørlandet should have been bigger than it is today, he suggested from Egersund to Grenland. The present day use of Sørlandet usually refers to a smaller than that. All the way back in 1865, it was talked about the southern Norway boats, the name and modern concept of this part of the country being considered as a separate region was introduced as late as 1902 by the local author Vilhelm Krag. Prior to this, the area was considered part of Western Norway, Southern Norway coincides roughly with the historic petty kingdom of Agder, which lends its name to the two constituent counties, Vest-Agder and Aust-Agder, as well as the University of Agder. If defined as a region, Southern Norway is perhaps more properly defined as the Skagerrak coastal belt. Occasionally, adjacent parts of the county of Rogaland and Telemark might be considered part of this region, the Arendal Airport, Gullknapp is a general aviation airport located outside of Arendal city. The airport was founded in 1984 with a 500-metre long runway, Arendal Airport, Rådhuskaien is a former water airport in the cove of downtown Arendal, but it is now closed. Farsund Airport, Lista is a public airport located with Lista. It opened in 1941 and closed in 1999, the airport was located at Lista
10.
Gabbro
–
Gabbro refers to a large group of dark, often phaneritic, mafic intrusive igneous rocks chemically equivalent to basalt. It forms when magma is trapped beneath the Earths surface. Much of the Earths oceanic crust is made of gabbro, formed at mid-ocean ridges, Gabbro is also found as plutons associated with continental volcanism. Due to its variant nature, the term gabbro may be applied loosely to a range of intrusive rocks. The term gabbro was used in the 1760s to name a set of types that were found in the ophiolites of the Apennine Mountains in Italy. Then, in 1809, the German geologist Christian Leopold von Buch used the term more restrictively in his description of these Italian ophiolitic rocks and he assigned the name gabbro to rocks that geologists nowadays would more strictly call metagabbro. Von Buch named gabbro after Gabbro, a village in Rosignano Marittimo municipality of Tuscany, Gabbro is dense, greenish or dark-colored and contains pyroxene, plagioclase, and minor amounts of amphibole and olivine. The pyroxene content is mostly clinopyroxene, generally augite, but small amounts of orthopyroxene may also be present, if the amount of orthopyroxene is more than 95% of the total pyroxene content, then the rock is termed norite. On the other hand, gabbro has more than 95% of its pyroxenes in the form of the monoclinic clinopyroxene/s, the calcium rich plagioclase feldspar and pyroxene content vary between 10% - 90% in gabbro. If more than 90% plagioclase is present, then the rock is an anorthosite, if on the other hand, the rock contains more than 90% pyroxenes, it is termed pyroxenite. Gabbro may also contain amounts of olivine, amphibole and biotite. The quartz content in gabbro is less than 5% of total volume, quartz gabbros or monzogabbros are also known to occur, for example the cizlakite at Pohorje in northeastern Slovenia, and are probably derived from magma that was over-saturated with silica. Gabbros contain minor amounts, typically a few percent, of iron-titanium oxides such as magnetite, ilmenite, Gabbro is generally coarse grained, with crystals in the size range of 1 mm or greater. Finer grained equivalents of gabbro are called diabase, although the term microgabbro is often used when extra descriptiveness is desired, Gabbro may be extremely coarse grained to pegmatitic, and some pyroxene-plagioclase cumulates are essentially coarse grained gabbro, some may exhibit acicular crystal habits. Gabbro is usually equigranular in texture, although it may be porphyritic at times, cumulate gabbros are more properly termed pyroxene-plagioclase adcumulate. Gabbro is an part of the oceanic crust, and can be found in many ophiolite complexes as parts of zones III. Long belts of gabbroic intrusions are typically formed at proto-rift zones and around ancient rift zone margins, mantle plume hypotheses may rely on identifying mafic and ultramafic intrusions and coeval basalt volcanism. It is better to base a rock definition on descriptive characteristics of the rather than how or where it was formed
11.
Ice age
–
An ice age is a period of long-term reduction in the temperature of Earths surface and atmosphere, resulting in the presence or expansion of continental and polar ice sheets and alpine glaciers. Within a long-term ice age, individual pulses of cold climate are termed glacial periods, in the terminology of glaciology, ice age implies the presence of extensive ice sheets in both northern and southern hemispheres. In 1742 Pierre Martel, an engineer and geographer living in Geneva, two years later he published an account of his journey. He reported that the inhabitants of that valley attributed the dispersal of erratic boulders to the glaciers, later similar explanations were reported from other regions of the Alps. In 1815 the carpenter and chamois hunter Jean-Pierre Perraudin explained erratic boulders in the Val de Bagnes in the Swiss canton of Valais as being due to glaciers previously extending further. An unknown woodcutter from Meiringen in the Bernese Oberland advocated a similar idea in a discussion with the Swiss-German geologist Jean de Charpentier in 1834, comparable explanations are also known from the Val de Ferret in the Valais and the Seeland in western Switzerland and in Goethes scientific work. Such explanations could also be found in parts of the world. When the Bavarian naturalist Ernst von Bibra visited the Chilean Andes in 1849–1850, meanwhile, European scholars had begun to wonder what had caused the dispersal of erratic material. From the middle of the 18th century, some discussed ice as a means of transport, the Swedish mining expert Daniel Tilas was, in 1742, the first person to suggest drifting sea ice in order to explain the presence of erratic boulders in the Scandinavian and Baltic regions. In 1795, the Scottish philosopher and gentleman naturalist, James Hutton, two decades later, in 1818, the Swedish botanist Göran Wahlenberg published his theory of a glaciation of the Scandinavian peninsula. He regarded glaciation as a regional phenomenon, only a few years later, the Danish-Norwegian geologist Jens Esmark argued a sequence of worldwide ice ages. In a paper published in 1824, Esmark proposed changes in climate as the cause of those glaciations and he attempted to show that they originated from changes in Earths orbit. During the following years, Esmarks ideas were discussed and taken over in parts by Swedish, Scottish, at the University of Edinburgh Robert Jameson seemed to be relatively open to Esmarks ideas, as reviewed by Norwegian professor of glaciology Bjørn G. Andersen. Jamesons remarks about ancient glaciers in Scotland were most probably prompted by Esmark, in Germany, Albrecht Reinhard Bernhardi, a geologist and professor of forestry at an academy in Dreissigacker, since incorporated in the southern Thuringian city of Meiningen, adopted Esmarks theory. In a paper published in 1832, Bernhardi speculated about former polar ice caps reaching as far as the zones of the globe. When he read his paper before the Schweizerische Naturforschende Gesellschaft, most scientists remained sceptical, finally, Venetz convinced his friend Jean de Charpentier. De Charpentier transformed Venetzs idea into a theory with a limited to the Alps. In fact, both men shared the same volcanistic, or in de Charpentiers case rather plutonistic assumptions, about the Earths history, in 1834, de Charpentier presented his paper before the Schweizerische Naturforschende Gesellschaft
12.
Dovrefjell
–
Dovrefjell is a mountain range in central Norway that forms a natural barrier between Eastern Norway and Trøndelag, the area around Trondheim. As a result, it has been heavily trafficked during and probably preceding historical times, several mountain inns were established in the Middle Ages to house pilgrims traveling to Trondheim, and there are even ruins of an old leper colony in the northern area of it. The main south-north highway and Dovre Line in Norway runs over Dovrefjell, the highway is a year-round highway but is at rare occasions closed for short periods during heavy winter weather conditions. The natural habitat for rare plants and animals, it became a national park in several stages starting in 1911. When the railroad was built from Oslo to Trondheim in 1921, in 1974, parts of the range became a national park and the park was extensively enlarged in 2002. Together with Rondane, it has Norway and Europes last stock of wild reindeer of Beringian origin, Dovrefjell also has a stock of musk oxen, imported from East-Greenland in 1932. Dovre National Park, founded 2003, connecting the areas in the Dovrefjell-Sunndalsfjella National Park with Rondane National Park. The highest mountain in the region is Snøhetta at 2,286 meters above sea level, the range provides cross-country skiing and hiking opportunities. The river Driva, running north through the municipality of Oppdal, has its source in the Dovrefjell range, the first element refers to the geographic area, Dovre. It is common to use the shortened form Dovre also for the mountainous area around Dovrefjell. From the oldest times has Dovrefjell been the region between the northern and southern parts of Norway, and the road over the mountain was well known. The expression til Dovre faller is widely used in Norwegian and it was used in the oath sworn during the Norwegian Constituent Assembly in 1814, when Norway formed an independent nation after being a part of Denmark. At this time it was assumed that Snøhetta in Dovrefjell was the highest mountain in Norway, Dovrefjell - the official travel guide to Norway
Media related to Galdhøpiggen at Wikimedia Commons
