Andes mountains

Andes mountains

The Andes mountain range is a chain of mountains in South America between 11 ° N latitude and 56 ° S latitude, which crosses Argentina, Bolivia, Chile, Colombia, Ecuador, Peru and part of Venezuela. The average height reaches 4,000 meters, with numerous points reaching and even exceeding 6,000 meters above sea level. It is the largest mountain range in the American continent and one of the most important in the world. It constitutes an enormous mountainous mass that runs in a south-north direction, contouring the coast of the Pacific Ocean along 7,500 km. In the extreme south this mountain range plunges into the Atlantic Ocean to the east of the island of the States.

It was formed at the end of the Secondary era, at the end of the late Cretaceous, by the subduction movement of the Nazca plate under the South American Plate. Subsequent seismic movements and volcanic activity have been more important in shaping the relief than external erosive agents. In the current morphology there are high mountain ranges, together with extensive plateaus and deep longitudinal valleys parallel to the great mountain axes. The transverse valleys are scarce, except in the Argentine-Chilean Andes.

In its southern part it serves as a natural border between Chile and Argentina. In the central zone, the Andes widen giving rise to a high plateau known as the Altiplano. The Altiplano is shared by Argentina, Bolivia, Chile and Peru. The mountain range becomes narrow again in the north of Peru and Ecuador widens again in Colombia where it is also divided into three branches, two go to the north and northwest of Colombia and one goes to Venezuela, where the mountain range extends to almost touching the Caribbean Sea.