#machhapuchchhre

Machhapuchchhre (several alternate spellings) translates to “Fish Tail”, which is believed to describe the shape of the mountain when seen from a certain perspective. The mountain is one of several in the Himalayas believed by the local residents to be the home of the Hindu God Shiva (the most widely believed home is Kailash, see here: http://tmblr.co/Zyv2Js1rQtK9w) If you look at the gorgeous, sun-lit face you can get a glimpse of the geology of this peak. Virtually all the rocks appearing on Machhapuchchhre’s sharp face are limestones originally formed at the bottom of the Tethys Ocean that closed when India collided with Asia. In the center of the image/to the lower right of the summit, you can make out bedding layers that dip towards the lower left of the image. However, at the tip of the peak, I lose those patterns. The summit of Machhapuchchhre is in the hinge of a large fold – the limestone beds that dip towards the lower left fold back upward just out of the frame and are eroded away at the summit. The summit preserves the core of the fold and the rocks on both sides of that hinge have been eroded away. Lower on the mountain, out of the frame, we find several faults. In the Himalayas, sedimentary rocks like those at the summit of Mount Everest are often divided from highly metamorphosed rocks by a normal fault and Machhapuchchhre fits this pattern. Lower on the mountain there are a series of marbles separated from the limestones by a fault; motion on these faults probably helped fold the limestones into the shape seen today. Machhapuchchhre has another interesting legacy – it is one of the few summits on Earth that has never been legally climbed. Because of its important place in the religion of the nearby communities, local laws forbid climbing the peak. In the 1950s a climber got within about 100 meters of the summit but turned back as local religious leaders requested he not approach the top. In the 1980s, one climber may have illegally summited the peak, but that climber died in an avalanche a few years later and if he did reach the summit his story was never told. -JBB Image credit: http://bit.ly/1UiONpo References: http://www.jstor.org/stable/10.1086/376763 http://www.summitpost.org/machhapuchare/150279 http://bit.ly/1IHLp3D http://bit.ly/1IW4dho