Mountain Shapes (IMAGE)
Caption
The researchers found that the 182 mountain ranges they studied have four principal shapes. Diamond-shaped ranges such as the Rocky Mountains (a) increase in land area from the bottom until mid-elevation before contracting quickly. Pyramid-shaped mountains such as the Alps (b) have sides that rise sharply and consistently decrease in area the higher they go. The Kunlun Mountains (c) of China take the form of inverse pyramids, which gradually expand in area as elevation increases before suddenly widening toward their peaks. For hourglass-shaped mountain ranges such as the Himalayas (d), land area rises slightly then decreases at mid-elevations before increasing sharply at higher elevations. The three-dimensional images (second row) represent each range shape as viewed from the side. Moving from bottom to top, the width of the shape changes to represent an increase or decrease in area at a specific elevation. Elevation spans from zero to more than 8,685 meters (28,494 feet), and is denoted by the color scale from blue (lowest elevation) to brown (highest elevation).
Credit
(Image by Paul Elsen, Princeton University Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology; Morgan Tingley, University of Connecticut; and Mike Costelloe)
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