Karakoram

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This article is about the mountain range. For the city in Mongolia, see Karakorum.
Highest Karakoram peaks as seen from International Space Station
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Highest Karakoram peaks as seen from International Space Station
Pakistani truck on the Karakoram Highway. Nanga Parbat is visible in the background
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Pakistani truck on the Karakoram Highway. Nanga Parbat is visible in the background

Karakoram is a mountain range spanning the borders between Pakistan, China, and India, located in the regions of Gilgit, Ladakh and Baltistan. It is one of the Greater Ranges of Asia, often considered together with the Himalaya, but not technically part of that range. Karakoram means "black gravel" in Turkish, as many of its glaciers are covered in rubble.

The Karakoram is home to more than sixty peaks above 7,000m (22,960 ft), including K2, the second highest peak of the world (8,611 m, 28,244 ft). Most of these peaks are in the Northern Areas of Pakistan. The range is about 500 km (300 mi) in length, and is the most heavily glaciated part of the world outside of the polar regions. The Siachen Glacier at 70 km and the Biafo Glacier at 63 km rank as the world's second and third longest glaciers outside the polar regions.[1]

The Karakoram is bounded on the northeast by the edge of the Tibetan Plateau, and on the north by the Wakhan Corridor and the Pamir Mountains. Just to the west of the northwest end of the Karakoram lies the Hindu Raj range, beyond which is the Hindu Kush range. The southern boundary of the Karakoram is formed by the Gilgit, Indus, and Shyok Rivers, which separate the range from the northwestern end of the Himalaya range proper.

Due to its altitude and ruggedness, the Karakoram is much less inhabited than parts of the Himalayas further east. European explorers first visited early in the 19th century, followed by British surveyors starting in 1856.

The Muztagh Pass was crossed in 1887 by the expedition of Colonel Francis Younghusband and the valleys above the Hunza River were explored by George Cockerill in 1892. Explorations in the 1910s and 1920s established most of the geography of the region.

Marcel Ichac made a film entitled "Karakoram", chronicling a French expedition to the range in 1936. The film won the Silver Lion at the Venice film festival of 1937.

A portion of the Karakoram, disputed between India and China, has been re-created as a scale model by the Chinese government.[2] [3] [4]

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[edit] Geological importance

The Karakoram and the Himalaya are important to Earth scientists for several reasons. They are one of the world's most geologically active areas, at the boundary between two colliding continents. Therefore, they are important in the study of plate tectonics. Mountain glaciers may serve as an indicator of climate change, advancing and receding with long-term changes in temperature and precipitation. These extensive ranges may have even caused climate change when they were formed over 40 million years ago. The large amounts of rock exposed to the atmosphere are weathered (broken down) by carbon dioxide. This process removes the greenhouse gas from the atmosphere, and could have caused the global climate to cool, triggering an ongoing series of ice ages.

[edit] Highest peaks

K2 (Qogir Feng)
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K2 (Qogir Feng)

Most of the highest of Karakoram peaks are in the Northern Areas of Pakistan. Notable peaks are:

The majority of the highest peaks are either in the Baltistan or Ladakh regions. Baltistan has more than 100 mountain peaks exceeding 20,000 feet height from sea level.

[edit] Subranges

The naming and division of the various subranges of the Karakoram is not universally agreed upon. However, the following is a list of the most important subranges, following Jerzy Wala.[5] The ranges are listed roughly west to east.

[edit] References

  1. ^ Tajikistan's Fedchenko Glacier is 77 km long. Baltoro and Batura Glaciers in the Karakoram are 57 km long, as is Bruggen or Pio XI Glacier in southern Chile. Measurements are from recent imagery, generally supplemented with Russian 1:200,000 scale topographic mapping as well as Jerzy Wala,Orographical Sketch Map: Karakoram: Sheets 1 & 2, Swiss Foundation for Alpine Research, Zurich, 1990.
  2. ^ http://bbs.keyhole.com/ubb/showthreaded.php/Cat/0/Number/510687/page/vc/vc/1
  3. ^ http://www.theregister.co.uk/2006/07/19/huangyangtan_mystery/
  4. ^ http://abcnews.go.com/Technology/story?id=2266192&page=1
  5. ^ Jerzy Wala, Orographical Sketch Map of the Karakoram, Swiss Foundation for Alpine Research, Zurich, 1990.
  • Curzon, George Nathaniel. 1896. The Pamirs and the Source of the Oxus. Royal Geographical Society, London. Reprint: Elibron Classics Series, Adamant Media Corporation. 2005. ISBN 1-4021-5983-8 (pbk; ISBN 1-4021-3090-2 (hbk).

[edit] See also

[edit] External links

     Geography of South Asia     
Himalaya | Western Ghats | Eastern Ghats | Aravalli Range | The Nilgiris | Vindhya Range | Satpura Range | Garo Hills | Shivalik Hills | Khasi Hills | Annamalai Hills | Cardamom Hills | Sulaiman Mountains | Karakoram | Hindu Kush | Chittagong Hill Tracts | Deccan Plateau | Thar Desert | Makran | Chota Nagpur | Naga Hills | Mysore Plateau | Ladakh Plateau
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