The Lost World exists in reality. Table Mountains: Natural Wonders of the World Table Mountains in South America

The word "Tepui" in the language of the Indian tribe Pemon means "House of the gods." Tepui rise above the green massif of the tropical jungle with majestic inaccessible cliffs, some of them over 2 thousand meters high.

Striking landscapes with mesas are more like amazing scenery for some science fiction film than reality. Most scientists are convinced that Tepui with steep, almost sheer slopes and “cut” flat peaks are the oldest mountains in the world.

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Building and some history

Table mountains are "fragments" of a spacious mountain plateau, which in ancient times stretched from the Atlantic coast to the borders of the river basins (Spanish Río Amazonas), (Spanish Río Orinoco) and (Spanish Rio Negro). The plateau was formed on the site of an ancient lake about 200 million years ago, when Africa and South America were a single continent. The plateau, consisting of sandstone, was placed on a granite base; over the years, as a result of erosion, cut by streams of water, the plateau split into many separate cliffs.

Different layers of sandstone, as a rule, are destroyed at different speeds, as a result of which the rocks have taken on bizarre shapes. So from the durable rocks of the Precambrian sandstone or quartzite, Tepui were formed, scattered across the plateau. Their distinguishing feature is perfectly flat, like a table, tops - hence the name "table mountains". All Tepui are completely isolated from each other and from the vegetation below, because the bases of the mountains are separated from the peaks by a wall of dull stone. In many rocks there are grottoes washed by water, such as Abismo Guy Collet(Spanish: Abismo Guy Collet; depth 671 m) is the deepest cave in South America, as well as huge karst funnels (up to 300 m in diameter) resulting from the collapse of the tunnel vaults of underground rivers.

An English traveler, a German by origin, Robert Schomburgk (German: Robert Hermann Schomburgk; 1804-1865) visited the area in 1835 on behalf of the London Geographical Society and was fascinated by the mesas. However, the explorer's attempts to climb one of the giants were unsuccessful. Only in December 1884 did the British expedition, led by the anthropologist Everard Im Thurn (eng. Sir Everard im Thurn), manage to climb to the top - Tepui (Spanish Roraima; 2810 m). However, it was the report of that Schomburgk expedition that inspired the English writer Sir Arthur Conan Doyle to write the adventure novel The Lost World.

Fantastic view of Mount Roraima

Climate on Tepui

As in the lowlands that pass into the Guiana Highlands, Tepui has dry and rainy seasons. The climate is significantly affected by altitude, so, at the highest Tepuy, the temperature sometimes drops to 0 ° C. But usually the average temperatures on the flat tops range from +8°C to +20°C, depending on the height above sea level.

Canaima Park

In the southeast of Venezuela, in an area called Gran Sabana (Spanish: La Gran Sabana), is the most extensive natural reserve in Venezuela - (Spanish: Parque Nacional Canaima). The park is considered the oldest natural area on Earth. This amazing lost world has been preserved as it was many million years ago: more than 30 thousand km² of tropical jungle and savannah, separated by majestic mesas.

The national park, which covers most of the Guiana Highlands, was founded in 1962.

The village of Canaima (Spanish: Canaima), located at the northwestern edge of the protected area, on the banks of the picturesque lagoon of the same name (Spanish: Laguna de Canaima), is the base for excursions in the park. There is a small airport near the village, campsites and cottages are equipped in the village itself to accommodate tourists, because most often travelers spend several days in the park.

Here, visitors are offered the most interesting canoe excursions along the amazing lagoon, into which 4 waterfalls flow. Golondrina (Spanish: Salto Golondrina; 50 m) and Ukayma (Spanish: Salto Ucaima; 46 m) can be seen by vacationers by canoeing, and under the waterfalls Acha (Spanish: Salto Hacha; 40 m) and Sapo (Spanish: Salto Sapo; "Zhaba", 20 m) there is a walking path along which you can walk inside the waterfall, between the overflowing water stream and the rock.

In the center of the lagoon rises the island of Anatolia (Spanish Isla Anatoliy). Due to the presence of a significant amount of quartz, the water in the lagoon has a rich brown color, and the sand is pink.

But the most famous waterfall and one of the most spectacular sights of the reserve is the highest in the world (Spanish: Salto Angel; about 1000 m), excursions to which are carried out either by boat, or by small planes or helicopters. To admire it, streams of tourists flock to these parts from all over the world. The waters of Angel rush from one of the most majestic peaks of the plateau, Auyan-Tepui (Spanish: Auyantepui), from a height of about 1 thousand meters. In the dry season (December-March), when the local rivers become shallow, the waterfall can only be reached by air. Auyan-Tepui is considered the largest of the mesas, and the area of ​​​​the plateau of its summit is about 700 km².

On the southeastern edge of the park is Roraima (Spanish Roraima; 2810 m), the highest Tepui of the Venezuelan highlands. Its top, an almost perfectly flat plateau of 34 km², is completely covered with lush vegetation, bizarre-shaped stones, caves, lakes and small swamps. The local Indians call Mount Roraima the “Navel of the Earth” and firmly believe that the goddess Queen, the progenitor of the human race, lives on its top.

One of the most beautiful Tepuy, Mount Autana (Spanish Autana), rises above the jungle at 1300 m. Its peculiarity is that the mountain is pierced through and through by a cave, from one end to the other. The Autana plateau is decorated with dark gray rocks of the most bizarre shapes, surrounded by round depressions with water.

Sarisariñama is interesting - Tepui (Spanish: Sarisariñama; 2300 m), known for its perfectly round funnels (about 350 m in diameter) of unknown origin, the bottom of which is covered with unique plants. These mysterious holes on the surface of the earth were discovered relatively recently, in 1974. Such funnels with the purest water at the bottom are found on many Tepui.

A number of other lesser-known but also delightful dining hills can be found in the vast Canaima Park.

The ecological reserve, which protects truly invaluable natural resources on its territory, was included in the UNESCO World Heritage Register in 1994.

Flora and fauna

65% of the vast territory of the park is occupied by Tepui, which rise above the jungle with rocks of various sizes, standing at a distance from each other. In addition to the majestic mesas, picturesquely hung with seething waterfalls, on the territory of the natural reserve you can see rare representatives of the flora and fauna that are found exclusively in this region. The plateaus of the table mountains are completely isolated from the jungle thickets at the foot, which makes the highlands “ecological islands”, on which many endemic representatives of flora and fauna have been preserved, developing for thousands of years in conditions of complete isolation. For example, carnivorous plants that lure insects into their beautiful fragrant traps. The slopes of the mountains, surrounded by fluffy clouds, are covered with exquisite bromeliads (lat. Bromelia; a genus of plants growing in the tropical regions of South America) and delicate orchids.

The peaks of Tepui are covered with a dense carpet of herbs and shrubs. In tropical forests and savannas, over which rocks rise, there are about 9 thousand varieties of plants, among which there are more than 500 species of orchids alone.

The fauna of the reserve park is amazingly rich and diverse, 150 species of mammals live here, including all kinds of monkeys, jaguars, cougars, tapirs, giant otters, ocelots, anteaters, peccaries, giant ants and grasshoppers (up to 15 cm), as well as many small animals . But the community of birds (more than 500 species) that are found in abundance on this fertile land is distinguished by the greatest species diversity: falcons, eagles, toucans, parrots, hummingbirds.

A land full of mysteries

Tepui is actually the only place on the planet where no human foot has set foot. People have visited only some Tepui, most of the mesas are completely unexplored to this day.

Therefore, unusual mountains become a source of legends, beliefs, mystical stories, as well as an inspiration for artists and science fiction writers. The local lands are densely shrouded in a halo of secrets and mysteries, which are told not only by age-old legends, but also by reports of exploratory expeditions. The last official major expedition to these parts, namely to Roraima, was undertaken in 1965 by the son of Juan Angel (Spanish: Juan Pablo Angel Arango), the discoverer of the famous waterfall, named after the Venezuelan pilot.

The expedition diary describes an outlandish world where the flat top of Tepui is covered with bizarre rocks that look like mushrooms, and in addition to the animals known to science, a strange creature was found there, called "Cadborosaurus" (lat. Cadborosaurus willsi). The previously unseen beast had the body of a snake with a series of humps on its back and the head of a horse. Giant ants (more than 5 cm long) were also found, capable of easily biting small branches with their strong teeth; frogs that incubate eggs like birds; insects are bloodsuckers, which were not affected by any, even the most powerful chemical means of protection.

The most significant discovery for scientists was the found remains of ancient animals that recently lived in this area and died, according to some hypotheses, as a result of space alien experiments. Such a bold assumption of scientists was prompted by the expedition members found a large, as if scorched, round area, completely devoid of vegetation and all strewn with silvery powder of unknown origin. Moreover, laboratory studies of the powder showed that it is an alloy of very rare metals, the creation of which under terrestrial conditions is unrealistic.

The researchers found many cave paintings depicting mythical animals and fantastic creatures resembling people in the caves. Also, members of the expedition came across several crypts, inside which an unusually thick fog hung and a sweet smell hovered. Several team members, breathing in an unusual aroma, fell into a coma for several days, and when they came to their senses, they told their comrades about incredible visions and movements to other worlds.

After that incident, it was decided to immediately return back, but a new surprise awaited the researchers: they could not find a way out of the ancient enchanted world, as if some mystical forces prevented this in every possible way.

Only after a few months, the exhausted travelers managed to return home. According to them, some kind of supernatural force intervened again, picking up people and slowly lowering them to the central square of the nearest Indian settlement.

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Tepui are flat mesas in the Guiana Highlands in South America, specifically in Venezuela. In the language of the Pemon people who live in Gran Sabana, the word tepui means "House of the Gods" because they are very tall. Tepui are separate mountains, which means that they can find a wide variety of endemic plant and animal species, some of which live only on one tepui.

1. Rising above the surrounding forest, tepui have almost vertical walls, and many of them rise more than 1000 m above the jungle.

2. The highest tepuis reach 3000 meters in height.

3. Almost vertical slopes and dense tropical forest on which these tepui lie make them inaccessible to foot conquerors.

4. Only three mountains of the Gran Sabana can be reached on foot, and among them is Mount Roraima at 2180 m in height.

5. Tepui is the remains of a large sandstone plateau that once covered a layer of granite between the northern border of the Amazon and Orinoco basins, between the Atlantic coast and the Rio Negro, during the Precambrian period.

6. For millions of years, the plateaus have been eroded, and all that remains of them is flat-topped tepui.

7. Although tepui seem deserted, their peaks are full of life.

8. Due to the high altitude, the climate on the tepui is different from what reigns below.

9. It is often cooler at the top, it rains more often, and below the mountains have a tropical, warm and humid climate.

10. Many unusual plants have adapted to this habitat and have become unique species of tepui.

11. About 9400 tall plant species have been recorded in Venezuelan Guyana, of which 2322 have been recorded on tepui.

12. About one third of these species are found nowhere else in the world.

13. There are 115 such mesas in the Gran Sabana region. They are located in the southeast of Venezuela, where the most tepui is concentrated.

14. The most famous among them is Mount Roraima.

15. Roraima remained unexplored until 1884.

The wild beauty of the mountains beckons and, at the same time, guards - the giant rocky peaks conceal an age-old secret. Among the many mountain ranges, table mountains are especially mysterious, soaring alone above the landscape - they seem unreal, abandoned to Earth from another galaxy, although their flat top and steep slopes were formed as a result of quite understandable tectonic processes. Separated from the earth's surface many millions of years ago, high mountain plateaus - carriers of a unique, amazing flora and fauna - this is a unique "lost" world, as if descended from the pages of Arthur Conan Doyle's story.

Table Mountains: origin
Table Mountain (mesa, tableland, tafelberg) is a mountain plateau with an absolutely flat, as if cut, surface supported by steep slopes - hence the origin of the name of the lonely relief formations found on all continents of our planet. Flat-topped rocks owe their origin to tectonic activity, which once raised them above the surface.


McKay, Ontario, Canada
The final touch to the formation of rocky plateaus was made by the processes of erosion and weathering - soft rocks were washed away, while harder ones - sandstone, quartzite, basalt, limestone - remained. A separate group is made up of table mountains formed as a result of volcanic eruptions - they are characterized by a peak composed of igneous rocks.

Table mountains of South America
On the Guiana Plateau of Latin America - in Venezuela, Brazil and Guyana, there are rocks with flat peaks, named in the local dialect of the indigenous people - Tepui, which means "house of the gods." The Tepui rock formations are composed of sheer blocks of Precambrian quartz sandstone. Separated from the surrounding landscape, hanging in the form of islands 1-3 thousand meters high above the tropical forest, tepui are the owners of endemic flora and fauna. Rare flowers grow on the high plateaus - orchids and carnivorous plants, due to rocky soils that are poor in nutrients and unsuitable for other plant species.


Tepui-Ujnaya-America

At one time, science adhered to the hypothesis that the biodiversity of the rocky hills of South America is relict, which has not passed the stage of mixing of species. However, recent research by scientists proves that tepui were not as rigidly isolated from the environment as previously thought - for example, the endemic tree frog Tepuihyla got to the top of Latin American tepui after the mountain range had formed. In total, there are about 60 flat-topped formations in this region.

The most famous mesas-tepui mountains in South America:

1. Roraima (Mount Roraima, 2810 m), peak area 31 km2. Inspired by Robert Schomburk's report on the rock mass of Latin America, which was presented to the Royal Geographical Society in 1844, Conan Doyle wrote his story "The Lost World" - it was Roraima who became the prototype of a mysterious mountainous country inhabited by outlandish prehistoric animals.

Roraima Tepui, South America

2.Auantepui. This table mountain is the owner of the highest waterfall in the world - Angel (979 m), falling into a lake with a depth of 807 m. In the language of the indigenous population - Pemon, the waterfall was called Kerepakupai Vena until recently. The current name is Angel, he received in honor of the American pilot Jimmy Angel, whose monoplane made an emergency landing at the top of the plateau in 1937. It took the angel and his three companions 11 days to descend the mountain and return back to the civilized world. Only 33 years later, the legendary aircraft was raised from the top of the mountain, restored in the Aviation Museum and hoisted at the entrance to Ciudad Bolivar Airport.

Auan Tepui, Angel Falls, Venezuela

3. Kukenan or Matavi tepui (Matawi Tepui) , 2680 m), 3 km long. The local population, the Pemon Indians, consider the lonely standing table mountain to be the country of the dead, and the Kukenan River originates here.

Kukenan Tepui, Venezuela, South America

4. Ptari (Ptari-Tepui, 2700 m ). The classic version of the table mountain of South America - with a perfectly cut top and absolutely vertical slopes.

Ptari tepui, Venezuela, Latin America


Carnivorous Heliamphora flower on Ptari Tepui

5. Autana Tepui, 1300 m ). This plateau is notable for the fact that a horizontally oriented cave passes through its thickness, penetrating the rock through and through.

Tepui Autana, South America

6. Sarisarinam (Sarisarinama). The study of the mountain plateau began in 1961, when pilot Harry Gibson noticed unique natural holes on its flat top. Vertical cave-wells go deep into the rock - the longest of them has a length of 1.35 km.

Tepui Sarisarinama, Venezuela
Table mountain Tucumcari (Tucumcari Mountain) in Mexico is not much different from the tepui of the Guiana massif - at 1517 meters it rises above the South American savannah. Opened in 1793, the hermit peak caused a lot of controversy on the sidelines of scientists on the subject of age: at first it was assumed that the table mountain was formed during the Jurassic period, then it turned out that the rocky formation was younger and belongs to the Cretaceous period.

Tucumcari, Mexico
Nature has not bypassed Argentina either - there are also lonely mountains with horizontal ends on its territory - the duet of peaks of the Sierra Negra massif is located near the city of Zapala, famous for its coffee plantations. In addition to coffee, this region of South America is rich in precious metal deposits. In the depths of the mountain range there are gold mines, which have recently been run by the Canadian company Goldcorp - according to experts, about 0.5 million ounces of gold per year will be mined at the mine over the next 9 years, in July 2014, the first 100 kg were withdrawn from the stone depths.

Sierra Negra, Argentina

Table mountains of North America
Canyonlands National Park (Canyonlands National Park) in Utah, near the city of Moab - a vivid example of eroded lands with multiple canyons, hills and mesas, between which the Colorado River and the Green River flow. The park is conditionally divided into three zones: Island in the Sky, Needles and Maze, each of which is remarkable in its own way. "Isle in the Sky" is an extended plateau 366 m high, cut by the Colorado River 305 m deep, with the highest point of White Rim, the Needles Zone is famous for well-preserved clay dwellings of American aborigines and the "stone newspaper" - Newspaper Rock - with carved on rocks with petroglyphs. In the Maze zone is the Barrier Canyon - the most inaccessible part of the plateau, where rock paintings and pictograms of ancient hunter-gatherers dating back to 2 thousand years BC were found.

Canyon Land, Utah, USA
On the border between Utah and Arizona lies the Monument Valley with solitary flat-topped peaks sometimes reaching 300 meters. The local Navajo Indians call this area, which belongs to the Colorado Plateau, the Valley of the Stones. The terracotta color of the mountains is due to the presence of iron oxide in the rock, and the darker, gray-orange hue of some rocks is due to manganese oxide. In the 1950s, uranium, vanadium and copper were mined in Monument Valley.

Monument Valley, Utah, USA
In the state of Colorado, on the green Mesa Verde plateau, there is a national park - this is the country of Montezuma - an ancient city built by the Pueblo people (Anasazi Indians) many centuries ago. Over 600 rock dwellings were erected between 400 and 1200 AD. at the foot of the emerald table mountains and in their thickness, but after a 25-year drought, people were forced to leave their inhabited place.

City of Montezuma, Mesa Verde, Colorado, USA
Glass Mountains or Gloss Hills - table mountains in the western region of Oklahoma (USA), rise above ground level from 46 to 61 meters. The array of hills with flat tops got its name back in 1820 from the first explorers of America due to sparkling inclusions of selenite.

Table Mountains Glass, Oklahoma, USA
In Oklahoma, on the Great Plains, there is another similar natural formation - the Black Mesa Plateau (Black Mesa, 1516 m) with a length of 270 km - on the top of this table mountain, native Indians have been setting up their camps for centuries.

Black Mesa, Oklahoma, USA
Over the coast of Cuba, in the province of Guantanamo, hangs the high plateau of El Yunque (El Yunque, 575 m), resembling a blacksmith's table in outline - this feature of the mountain served as the impetus for choosing its name: "yunque" is translated from Spanish as an anvil.

El Yunque, Cuba

Table mountains in Africa
Mountain fortress or Amby - the so-called table mountains in Africa - rocky plateaus in northern Ethiopia, composed of basalt and sandstone. There are three ambas in the Amhara region at once: Amba Geshen or Amara, Wehni and Debre Damo. The Amba Mountains are known as a place of imprisonment for brothers and male relatives of the king of Ethiopia, including sons. The unfortunate fell into a high-altitude dungeon immediately after the coronation of the heir to the throne and left it only after his death. When the sad tradition was annulled, in a remote mountainous area - in the temples on the tops of the rocks, they kept the treasures of the royal dynasty. Mount Geshen is famous for its Lalibela Orthodox Church in the form of a cross carved into the rock, and the table mountain Debre Damo (2216 m) is a Christian monastery of the 6th century.

Table mountain in Africa Debre Damo, Ethiopia


Orthodox monastery Lalibela on the table mountain Geshen, Ethiopia, Africa


African mesas in northern Ethiopia
On the territory of Ethiopia, many rocks with vertical slopes and a flat top are scattered: Amba Aradam (2756 m), Amba Alagi (3438 m), Kundudo (3000 m). In 2008, a lost stalagmite cave with ancient rock paintings was discovered on Mount Kundudo. Here is the habitat of the only population of wild horses preserved in the world.

Table mountain Kundudo, Ethiopia, Africa


Ammonites on Kundudo Mesa, Ethiopia


Coral stalagmites in a cave on Mount Kundudo, Ethiopia, Africa

The most famous African plateau in the world is the Table Mountain (1084 m) of Cape Town (South Africa) with a length of 3 km. It is also the symbol of the city, featured on its flag. A striking feature of the African mountain plateau - orographic clouds, almost constantly enveloping its top, form, as it were, a tablecloth on a flat tabletop. Local natives attribute unusual cloudiness to the devil lighting his pipe in the company of the pirate Van Hunky - this is an ancient legend associated with Table Mountain. The age of the South African Table Mountain, built of hard gray quartz sandstone, is about 500 million years. The 2,200 species of plants growing on the high plateau are endemic and found nowhere else in the world. The symbol of the country of South Africa is a rare protea flower, the unique species of which are presented in the Table Mountain National Park.

Table Mountain Cape Town, South Africa, Africa
On the territory of Namibia, there are also several well-known rocky hills with a cut end: Etjo (500 m) with a length of 10 km, Grutberg (1840 m), Waterberg and Gamsberg. The table mountains of Namibia received their strange names in the Aryan way from the first German explorers.

Table Mountain Etjo, Namibia, Africa


Table mountain Gamsberg, Africa


Table Mountain Waterberg, Africa

Table mountains of Western Europe
An unusually beautiful rocky formation with a flat end in Ireland (County Sligo) - table mountain Ben Balben (Benbulbin) - is part of the array of green mountains Darty. The name comes from the Irish word Binn, which means "peak", and Ghulbain, "jaw". Table mountain Ben Balben was formed about 320 million years ago due to the movement of ice from the northeast to the southwest of the island, during the Ice Age. Once upon a time, the high plateau was under the thickness of the ancient sea, as evidenced by fossilized marine organisms - shells and corals found by scientists in all layers of the rock. Ben Bulben is composed mainly of limestone and mudstone, a fine-grained sedimentary rock composed of petrified mud and clay.

Table Mountain Ben Bulben, Ireland, Europe

Table mountain Monte Santo (Monte Santo, 733 m), adjacent to the flat-topped rock of San Antonio in the Siligo region, is a landmark of the island of Sardinia (Italy).


Table mountain Monte Santo Sardinia island, Italy

Australian table mountains
Terracotta rock Uluru (Ayers Rock, 348 m) is considered the "heart" of Australia. Aborigines of the Anangu tribe settled in this area 10 thousand years ago, after a spring was discovered, beating directly from the top of a stone hill. Sacred to the natives, the table mountain Uluru is shrouded in an ominous haze - it is believed that it brings bad luck to those who try to climb it or take a piece of stone with them.

Table Mountain Uluru, Australia

northern mesas
In the northern latitudes, canteens or tabletop mountains have their own name - thuya (tuya). Tui are rock formations with a flat top, formed as a result of a volcanic eruption under the ice, as a result of which the lava came to the surface and transformed into solid basalt rocks after cooling.

Table Mountain Brown Bluff, Antarctica
Thuja Brown Bluff, about a million years old and about 1.5 km long, is located on the northern tip of Antarctica. Red-brown tuff at the foot of the table mountain smoothly turns into an ash-gray top, cut by erosion. Brown Bluff is a world ornithological reserve - here is the habitat of an extensive colony of birds: 20 thousand pairs of Adélie penguins and 550 pairs of gentoos penguins.

Table Mountain Brown Bluff, Antarctica
On the territory of Canada, mainly in British Columbia, there are whole groups of high mountain plateaus. One of them is the 2021-meter table mountain Table Mountain, standing in the middle of Lake Garibaldi.

Table Mountain The Table, Canada
In the northern regions of the United States, you can find mesas-tuyas, formed on the site of stratovolcanoes and as a result of the descent of glaciers. In Oregon, there is the plateau Hayrick Butte (Hayrick Butte, 1683 m) - this is a kind of subglacial volcano with absolutely vertical slopes. At a distance of 3 km from it there is another thuja volcano - Hogg Rock (Hogg Rock, 1548 m). Unlike other table formations, Hogg Rock has one gentle slope, along which a road is laid to the top of the plateau.

Table Mountain Hayrick Butte in Oregon, USA


Diomede Islands in the Coastal Strait
The unusual Diomedes Islands, the smaller of which belongs to the United States, and the larger of which belongs to Russia, are subglacial dormant thuja volcanoes in the Bering Strait with a flat top. During the Cold War between the USSR and the USA, Diomedes, between which the state border passes, were symbolically called the "ice curtain".

Table mountains on Mars
Alpine plateaus in the form of table mountains exist not only on Earth, in the solar system they are also found on Mars - in the transition zone between highlands and plains, and their height varies from 100 m to 2 km. Scientists believe that the Martian mesas were formed due to the movement of ice and its subsequent evaporation in the atmosphere.

In the southeast of Venezuela (South America) there are unusual mountains with truncated, flat tops - tepui, which in the language of the indigenous Pemon Indians means "house of the gods". These mountains are some of the most ancient formations on Earth with an age of about 2 billion years of the Precambrian period and are the remnants of a vast plateau that once stretched from the Atlantic coast to the borders of the Amazon, Orinoco and Rio Negro river basins. They resemble huge tables and mostly stand isolated from each other, towering over the jungle with hard-to-reach cliffs.

Roraima is the highest table mountain in Venezuela, reaching a height of 2810 meters. It is located at the junction of Brazil (Roraima State), Venezuela (Canaima National Park) and Guyana. The surface area of ​​the plateau of the "big blue-green mountain", as it is also called, is about 34 km². Local Indians call it the "navel of the earth", believing that the goddess Queen lives on the very top of the mountain - the progenitor of all people.

A large cloud constantly hangs over Roraima, it rains almost every day, the weather changes quickly and often. Water covers about a fifth of the plateau: peat bogs, bright pink puddles, crystal clear lakes, fast-flowing rivers, the channels of which are dotted with rock crystals for several hundred meters. Due to the abundance of precipitation, a huge amount of water falls from Roraima, and at its foot the Amazon, Orinoco and Essequibo rivers originate.

Mysterious Tepui

Tepui is the only place on Earth where no human has set foot. What animals live on Tepui, what plants grow on Tepui - all this is a dark forest for us, since people have visited only some Tepui. And most of Tepui is absolutely unexplored!

They become not only a source of legends and scary stories, but also the subject of creativity for science fiction artists:

Tepuis are mesas in the Guiana Highlands of South America.

The largest natural reserve in Venezuela, the Canaima National Park, was founded in 1962 and is considered the oldest part of the Earth, whose age exceeds 2 million years. This lost world, as if accidentally preserved as it was many millions of years ago, is visited daily by thousands of tourists.

Roraima is the tallest tepui in Venezuela. Its height is 2810 meters, and the top - a plateau with an area of ​​34 km² - is completely covered with dense vegetation, bizarre stones, steep depressions, caves, small lakes and swamps. Local Indians call Mount Roraima “the navel of the earth” and believe that the progenitor of the human race, the goddess Queen, lives on its top.

Alina_Mix

Tepui Roraima in South America

Roraima (Roraima) - the miracle mountain tepui (one of the oldest mountains in the world) is located in South America, where Venezuela, Guyana and Brazil meet. At the confluence of the three states, the height of the mountain above sea level is 2723 m. "Roraima" in translation means "blue-green big mountain". The local Indians call her "The navel of the earth" and according to legend, it is believed that the progenitor of the human race lives here Goddess Queen.

At the top of the mountain there is a plateau the area of ​​​​which is about 84 km², and the length along the border between Venezuela and Brazil is 280 kilometers. There are a couple of dozen mountains in Venezuela With flat tops andvertical slopes(table mountains).

These mountains are stackedhard sandstone and are the remainsvast plateau, whichonce stretched from the Atlantic Ocean to the rivers Orinoco, Amazon and Rio Negro and formed about 200 million years ago, when South America and Africa were one.

"Tepui" translated from the language of local Indiansmeans "house of the gods". These tepui standing t mostly isolated from each other in remote jungles,what makes them unique carriers endemic animals and plants. Flora and fauna develop hereover millions of yearsin complete isolation.

Roraima is one among the most famous tepui.

The highest tepui is located in Brazil. it Piso de Neblina. Its height is 3014 m.

The area of ​​the largest tepui Auyantepui is 700 km². Angel - the highest waterfall falls from this mountain.

Road to the Roraima Plateau extremely difficult, she passes through the gorge Guiana Highlands and thickets equatorial forest.

lovers Arthur Conan Doyle know that it is these tepui inspired him to write the world-famous novel The Lost World. tepui south america

On the Guiana Plateau of Latin America - in Venezuela, Brazil and Guyana, there are rocks with flat peaks, named in the local dialect of the indigenous people - Tepui, which means "house of the gods." The Tepui rock formations are composed of sheer blocks of Precambrian quartz sandstone. Separated from the surrounding landscape, hanging in the form of islands 1-3 thousand meters high above, tepui are the owners of endemic flora and fauna. Rare flowers grow on the high plateaus - orchids and, due to rocky soils that are poor in nutrients and unsuitable for other plant species.

At one time, science adhered to the hypothesis that the biodiversity of the rocky hills of South America is relict, which has not passed the stage of mixing of species. However, recent studies by scientists prove that tepui were not as rigidly isolated from the environment as previously thought - for example, the endemic Tepuihyla got to the top of Latin American tepui after the mountain range had formed. In total, there are about 60 flat-topped formations in this region.

The most famous mesas-tepui mountains in South America:

1. Roraima (Mount Roraima, 2810 m), peak area 31 km2. Inspired by Robert Schomburk's report on the rock mass of Latin America, which was presented to the Royal Geographical Society in 1844, Conan Doyle wrote his story "The Lost World" - it was Roraima who became the prototype of a mysterious mountainous country inhabited by outlandish prehistoric animals.

Roraima Tepui, South America

2. Auantepui. This table mountain is the owner of the highest waterfall in the world - Angel (979 m), falling into a lake with a depth of 807 m. In the language of the indigenous population - Pemon, the waterfall was called Kerepakupai Vena until recently. The current name is Angel, he received in honor of the American pilot Jimmy Angel, whose monoplane made an emergency landing at the top of the plateau in 1937. It took the angel and his three companions 11 days to descend the mountain and return back to the civilized world. Only 33 years later, the legendary aircraft was raised from the top of the mountain, restored in the Aviation Museum and hoisted at the entrance to Ciudad Bolivar Airport.

Auan Tepui, Angel Falls, Venezuela

3. Kukenan or Matavi Tepui (Matawi Tepui), 2680 m), 3 km long. The local population, the Pemon Indians, consider the lonely standing table mountain to be the country of the dead, and the Kukenan River originates here.

Kukenan Tepui, Venezuela, South America

4. Ptari (Ptari-Tepui, 2700 m). The classic version of the table mountain of South America - with a perfectly cut top and absolutely vertical slopes.

Ptari tepui, Venezuela, Latin America

Carnivorous Heliamphora flower on Ptari Tepui

5. Autana Tepui, 1300 m. This plateau is notable for the fact that a horizontally oriented cave passes through its thickness, penetrating the rock through and through.

Tepui Autana, South America

6. Sarisarinam (Sarisarinama). The study of the mountain plateau began in 1961, when pilot Harry Gibson noticed unique natural holes on its flat top. Vertical cave-wells go deep into the rock - the longest of them has a length of 1.35 km.

Tepui Sarisarinama, Venezuela

Table mountain Tucumcari (Tucumcari Mountain) in Mexico is not much different from the tepui of the Guiana massif - at 1517 meters it rises above the South American savannah. Opened in 1793, the hermit peak caused a lot of controversy on the sidelines of scientists on the subject of age: at first it was assumed that the table mountain was formed during the Jurassic period, then it turned out that the rocky formation was younger and belongs to the Cretaceous period.

Tucumcari, Mexico

Nature has not bypassed Argentina either - there are also lonely mountains with horizontal ends on its territory - the duet of peaks of the Sierra Negra massif is located near the city of Zapala, famous for its coffee plantations. In addition to coffee, this region of South America is rich in precious metal deposits. In the depths of the mountain range there are gold mines, which have recently been run by the Canadian company Goldcorp - according to experts, about 0.5 million ounces of gold per year will be produced at the mine over the next 9 years, in July 2014 the first 100 kg were withdrawn from the stone depths.

Sierra Negra, Argentina

Table mountains of North America

The Canyonlands National Park in Utah, near the city of Moab, is a vivid example of eroded lands with multiple canyons, hills and mesas, between which the Colorado River and the Green River flow. The park is conditionally divided into three zones: Island in the Sky, Needles and Maze, each of which is remarkable in its own way. "Isle in the Sky" is an extended plateau 366 m high, cut by the Colorado River 305 m deep, with the highest point of the White Rim, the Needles Zone is famous for its well-preserved clay dwellings and the "stone newspaper" - Newspaper Rock - with petroglyphs carved into the rocks . In the Maze zone is the Barrier Canyon, the most inaccessible part of the plateau, where rock paintings and pictograms of ancient hunter-gatherers dating back to 2000 BC have been found.

Canyon Land, Utah, USA

On the border between Utah and Arizona lies the Monument Valley with solitary flat-topped peaks sometimes reaching 300 meters. The local Navajo Indians call this area, which belongs to the Colorado Plateau, the Valley of the Stones. The terracotta color of the mountains is due to the presence of iron oxide in the rock, and the darker, gray-orange hue of some rocks is due to manganese oxide. In the 1950s, uranium, vanadium and copper were mined in Monument Valley.

Monument Valley, Utah, USA

In the state of Colorado, on the green plateau of Mesa Verde, there is a national park - this is the country of Montezuma - an ancient city built by the Pueblo people (Anasazi Indians) many centuries ago. Over 600 rock dwellings were erected between 400 and 1200 AD. at the foot of the emerald table mountains and in their thickness, but after a 25-year drought, people were forced to leave their inhabited place.

City of Montezuma, Mesa Verde, Colorado, USA

Glass Mountains or Gloss Hills - mesas in the western region of Oklahoma (USA), rise above ground level from 46 to 61 meters. The array of hills with flat tops got its name back in 1820 from the first explorers of America due to sparkling inclusions of selenite.

Table Mountains Glass, Oklahoma, USA

In Oklahoma, on the Great Plains, there is another similar natural formation - the Black Mesa Plateau (Black Mesa, 1516 m) with a length of 270 km - on the top of this table mountain, native Indians have set up their camps for centuries.

Black Mesa, Oklahoma, USA

Over the coast of Cuba, in the province of Guantanamo, hangs the high plateau of El Yunque (El Yunque, 575 m), resembling a blacksmith's table in outline - this feature of the mountain served as the impetus for choosing its name: "yunque" is translated from Spanish as an anvil.

El Yunque, Cuba

Table mountains in Africa

Mountain fortress or Amba - the so-called table mountains in Africa - rocky plateaus in northern Ethiopia, composed of sandstone. There are three ambas in the Amhara region at once: Amba Geshen or Amara, Wehni and Debre Damo. The Amba Mountains are known as a place of imprisonment for brothers and male relatives of the king of Ethiopia, including sons. The unfortunate fell into a high-altitude dungeon immediately after the coronation of the heir to the throne and left it only after his death. When the sad tradition was annulled, in a remote mountainous area - in temples on the tops of rocks, they kept the treasures of the royal dynasty. Mount Geshen is famous for its Lalibela Orthodox Church in the form of a cross carved into the rock, and the table mountain Debre Damo (2216 m) is a Christian monastery of the 6th century.

Table mountain in Africa Debre Damo, Ethiopia

Orthodox monastery Lalibela on the table mountain Geshen, Ethiopia, Africa

African mesas in northern Ethiopia

On the territory of Ethiopia, many rocks with vertical slopes and a flat top are scattered: Amba Aradam (2756 m), Amba Alagi (3438 m), Kundudo (3000 m). In 2008, a lost stalagmite cave with ancient rock paintings was discovered on Mount Kundudo. Here is the habitat of the only population of wild horses preserved in the world.

Ammonites on Kundudo Mesa, Ethiopia

Coral stalagmites in a cave on Mount Kundudo, Ethiopia, Africa

The most famous African plateau in the world is the Table Mountain (1084 m) of Cape Town (South Africa) with a length of 3 km. It is also the symbol of the city, featured on its flag. A striking feature of the African mountain plateau - orographic clouds, almost constantly enveloping its top, form, as it were, a tablecloth on a flat tabletop. Local natives attribute unusual cloudiness to the devil lighting his pipe in the company of the pirate Van Hunky - this is an ancient legend associated with Table Mountain. The age of the South African Table Mountain, built of hard gray quartz sandstone, is about 500 million years. The 2,200 species of plants growing on the high plateau are endemic and found nowhere else in the world. The symbol of the country of South Africa is, the unique species of which are presented in the Table Mountain National Park.

On the territory of Namibia, there are also several well-known rocky hills with a cut end: Etjo (500 m) with a length of 10 km, Grutberg (1840 m), Waterberg and Gamsberg. The table mountains of Namibia received their strange names in the Aryan way from the first German explorers.

Table Mountain Etjo, Namibia, Africa

Table mountain Gamsberg, Africa

Table Mountain Waterberg, Africa

Table mountains of Western Europe

An unusually beautiful rocky formation with a flat end in Ireland (County Sligo) - table mountain Ben Bulbin - is part of the array of green Darty mountains. The name comes from the Irish word Binn, which means "peak", and Ghulbain, "jaw". Table mountain Ben Balben was formed about 320 million years ago due to the movement of ice from the northeast to the southwest of the island, during the Ice Age. Once upon a time, a high-altitude plateau was under the thickness of an ancient sea, as evidenced by fossilized marine organisms - shells and found by scientists in all layers of the rock. Ben Bulben is composed mainly of limestone and mudstone, a fine-grained sedimentary rock composed of petrified mud and clay.

Table Mountain Ben Bulben, Ireland, Europe

Table mountain Monte Santo (Monte Santo, 733 m), adjacent to the flat-topped rock of San Antonio in the Siligo region, is a landmark of the island of Sardinia (Italy).

Table mountain Monte Santo Sardinia island, Italy

Australian table mountains

Terracotta rock Uluru (Ayers Rock, 348 m) is considered the "heart". Aborigines of the Anangu tribe settled in this area 10 thousand years ago, after a spring was discovered, beating directly from the top of a stone hill. Sacred to the natives, the table mountain of Uluru is shrouded in an ominous haze - it is believed that it brings bad luck to those who try to climb it or take a piece of stone with them.

northern mesas

In the northern latitudes, dining or table-top mountains have their own name - thuya (tuya). Tui are rock formations with a flat top, formed as a result of a volcanic eruption under the ice, as a result of which the lava came to the surface and transformed into solid basalt rocks after cooling.

Thuja Brown Bluff, about a million years old and about 1.5 km long, is located on the northern tip of Antarctica. Red-brown tuff at the foot of the table mountain smoothly turns into an ash-gray top, cut by erosion. Brown Bluff is a World Bird Sanctuary, home to an extensive bird colony of 20,000 pairs of Adélie penguins and 550 pairs of gentoos penguins.

Table Mountain Brown Bluff, Antarctica

On the territory of Canada, mainly in British Columbia, there are whole groups of high mountain plateaus. One of them is the 2021-meter table mountain Table Mountain, standing in the middle of Lake Garibaldi.

Table Mountain The Table, Canada

In the northern regions of the United States, you can find mesas-tuyas, formed on the site of stratovolcanoes and as a result of the descent of glaciers. In Oregon, there is the Hayrick Butte Plateau (1683 m) - this is a type of subglacial volcano with absolutely vertical slopes. At a distance of 3 km from it is another thuja volcano - Hogg Rock (Hogg Rock, 1548 m). Unlike other table formations, Hogg Rock has one gentle slope, along which a road is laid to the top of the plateau.

Table Mountain Hayrick Butte in Oregon, USA

Diomede Islands in the Coastal Strait

The unusual Diomedes Islands, the smaller of which belongs to the United States, and the larger of which belongs to Russia, are subglacial dormant thuja volcanoes in the Bering Strait with a flat top. During the Cold War between the USSR and the USA, Diomedes, between which the state border passes, were symbolically called the "ice curtain".

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