Dirk Schmeller, Université de Toulouse III – Paul Sabatier
We think of mountains as remote and little affected by human activity. Unfortunately, the negative impacts of what we do has important implications for nature, wildlife and human society.
Stocking the haypile.
Arterra/Universal Images Group via Getty Images
Pikas – small cousins of rabbits – live mainly in the mountainous US west. They've been called a climate change poster species, but they're more adaptable than many people think.
The Perito Moreno glacier in Patagonia. The sheer number of seracs gives the impression that the glacier’s surface is covered in dragon scales.
Olivier Dangles/IRD
Olivier Dangles, Institut de recherche pour le développement (IRD)
The parable of the dragons underlines the need to apprehend glacier disappearance in a transdisciplinary way, to create a dialogue between the physical, ecological and philosophical sciences.
Early humans called Denisovans lived in a remote mountain cave between 100,000 and 60,000 years ago, and possibly longer still, raising intriguing questions about their relationship to modern humans.
Himalayan rocks hold magnetic clues about their origins.
Craig Robert Martin
Earth's magnetic field locks information into lava as it cools into rock. Millions of years later, scientists can decipher this magnetic data to build geologic timelines and maps.
Montse Barado, casa Armengol (Sorpe). In summer, once a week, cattle ranchers and shepherds climb to the communal lands to have a look at the animals and give them some salt.
David Tarrasón i Cerdá,
Federica Ravera, Universitat de Vic – Universitat Central de Catalunya
In the Catalan Pyrenees, women shepherds and cattle ranchers try to valorise the ancestral agropastoral culture to save the mountains from climate change.
Rocks contain a layer-by-layer record of the history of our planet.
Fred Moore/flickr
A new report predicts that one-third of the ice in the Himalayas will melt, even if we contain global warming to 1.5C. So what does that mean for the flood-prone valleys below?
Mountains keep growing and growing and growing for many millions of years until they are so heavy that they can no longer grow taller, only wider.
Photo by Jeff Finley on Unsplash
When I was little, geologists worked out Earth's surface was made of pieces, like a giant puzzle. Those pieces, called “tectonic plates”, move and bump into each other and mountains form.
Solenosmilia coral reef with unidentified solitary yellow corals.
CSIRO
The Nov. 12 earthquake wasn't centered on any known major faults in the Earth's crust. In its wake, scientists will collect data to add detail to what they know about seismic activity in the area.
Everest: The Hillary Step is (or was) just 100 metres below the summit.
Shutterstock
Remote mountain regions are closer to the climate problem than we think, particularly in the context of safeguarding essential ecosystem services such as safe and adequate water.
The summit of Mt Zagaras north of Athens.
Jason König
It was day two of our 18 day trek to Everest’s Base Camp when in the afternoon our head guide Lhakpa Nurbu Sherpa sombrely reported to me that 16 Sherpas had been killed in an avalanche on the mountain…
Going where thousands have gone before.
EPA/Kenji Kondo
Everest climbing season is underway. For a few weeks each spring, the weather improves just enough to give climbers a chance of scaling the world’s tallest mountain. As increasing numbers flock to Everest…
Bleached and healthy corals on the Great Barrier Reef near Queensland’s Keppel Islands.
AAP
Australia’s coral reefs and mountain-top ecosystems are set to suffer from climate change, according to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s latest summary of the research. The threats to these…