IB Geography High Mountains

Temperature and Altitude

Low atmospheric pressure(air expands and cools), distance from re-radiation, Albedo

Lapse Rate

How quickly air cools with regard to altitude

Average: from sea level to 11km → -10° for every 150m, ELR

Folding

Plates crumpling

• Monocline → step-like fold
• Anticline → arch-like fold
• Sincline → u-shaped fold
• Overturned → folded on itself

Everest

Fold mountains → biggest between two continental plates

Ordovician Limestone Cap → under the ocean at some point

Mountain Building Zones

Convergent boundaries, e.g. Nazca and South American Plate

Subduction

Convergent boundary between an oceanic and continental plate

DALR vs WALR

Dry vs Wet Adiabatic Lapse Rate

• Dry → 10°/km
• Wet → 6°/km

Human Challenges

Altitude:

• Altitude sickness → less oxygen per breath, hypoxia,
• 8000m+ death zone → not enough oxygen for the body to build new tissue
• AMS → acute mountain sickness

Cold:

• <-10° intolerable for long-term
• frostbite, hypothermia, extremities
• Oymyakon → coldest inhabited place on earth

Resource Development:

• inavailability of water, food, fuel
• infrastructure → roads and rail lines buckle from melting and refreezing
• topography → steepness, unstable ground
• no running water, pipes freeze