The Ural mountains

Have the Ural mountains always been the border between Europe and Asia? Rummaged in books, you can find out that in the 5th century BC the Greek historian Herodotus conducted this border across the Bosphorus, Black Sea, The Sea of Azov and the Don. Further north, the land for the Greeks was unknown. In the 17th century, the border of Europe passed along the rivers Don, Volga, Pechora and Kama. French geographer Guillon on the map of 1760 "extended" Europe to the River Ob. However, he knew the eastern lands so badly that he did not at all designate the Ural Mountains: he simply did not know where they were. A German scientist A. Humboldt proposed to consider Europe and Asia as a single continent - Eurasia.

Have the Ural mountains always been the border between Europe and Asia?

For the first time, the Ural Mountains, stretching from south to north for 2 thousand km, became the border between Europe and Asia thanks to the Russian geographer and historian of Petrine time Vasily Tatishchev (1686-1750). This remarkable man, who published the first "factory charter" in 1734, knew his land well. He remarked: the rivers from the Ural mountains flow in two directions; one to Pechora and Kama, others to the Ob. Tatishchev wrote: "On the western side there is a fish in the rivers of the red body: salmon, harutsy.In the eastern rivers, although the appearance is similar to the western - taimeni, nelma, muxun, but both the body is white and taste different." He noticed that the vegetation behind the Ural mountains is also changing markedly: "These and these circumstances give the reason to assert these mountains abroad between Asia and Europe".

Tatishchev was the first to introduce the written name "Ural Mountains". Before him they were called in Greek Hyperborea (from the words "hyper" - over and "Borey" - the god of the north wind and the wind itself). Tatishchev called the Ural mountains a local name - in Tatar "Ural" - means "stone belt." On the border of Europe and Asia are seven memorable stone pillars, but the number of them is gradually increasing.

The Ural mountains were formed in the late Paleozoic in the era of intensive mountain building. Formation of the mountain system of the Ural Mountains began about 350 million years ago and ended about 200 million years ago. Deformed and often metamorphosed to the surface within the Ural mountains rocks mainly Paleozoic age. The thicknesses of sedimentary and volcanic rocks are usually strongly crumpled, broken by tears, but on the whole they form meridional bands, which determine the linearity and zoning of the structures of the Ural mountains.

Geographically, the Ural mountains are divided into five parts: the Polar Urals, the Subpolar Urals, the Northern Urals, the Central or Middle Urals, and the Southern Urals. In the north, the continuation of the Ural range can be considered the mountain system of Pai-Khoi, in the south - Mugodzhary.

Tools