Ural Mountains

The Ural (Russian Урал, Уральские горы, also known as the Urals ) is a to 1895 m high and almost 2400 km long mountain range, which in the north-south direction extending through the west-central Russia and represents a part of the Asia-Europe border.

Geography

Location

The Ural Mountains, the high mountain and a highland region which is located between the East European Plain in the west and the Western Siberian lowlands to the east. It extends from the north from the south coast of the Kara Sea, which is part of the Arctic Ocean, initially to the southwest, turn around 500 km towards the south, reached at Yekaterinburg its greatest width and ends on Uralknie between Orenburg and Orsk in Kazakhstan's northern border.

The northern third of the Urals extends approximately parallel to Ob, a large Siberian stream about 100 km approaches before its confluence with the Obbusen of the Arctic Ocean to the Ural Mountains in Labytnangi only about 50 km. The Ural runs through three climate zones and is very narrow in spite of nearly 2400 km in length with an average of about 50 km wide. He is the headwaters of many rivers (see below), for example, the river Ural.

Vicinity of the Ural

At the northern end of the Ural Mountains, the Pai- Choi joins the northwest, which extends to the narrow Jugorstraße, at the north side extends the Waigatsch Island. North of this island is the Karastraße to which the twin island Novaya Zemlya followed. Waigatsch and Novaya Zemlya may be considered the northern continuations of the Urals and Pai- Choi Mountains are considered.

When the southern continuation of the Ural Mountains, the location in Kazakhstan Mugodschar Mountains, located just south of the aforementioned Uralknies joins in Orsk, are considered. Further south is the Kasachensteppe, which are followed by the Aralo - Caspian lowland with the Aral Sea and the Caspian Sea.

Inner Eurasian border

Since Vasily Tatishchev the Ural Mountains, together with the Ural River a large part of the border between Europe and Asia. The " two Urale " thus divide the large continent of Eurasia into two unequal large continents (area 10.2 and 44.5 million km ²).

Subdivision

The nearly 2400 km long Urals is divided into five parts or directly merging into one another mountain ranges, these are viewed from north to south:

Geo coordinates (latitude = B; longitude = L)

Polar Urals ( Ural Polyarny ): B = 69 ° to 65 ° 40 'N, L = 67 ° to 62 ° East; north of Chulga source
Subpolarural ( Pripoljarny Urals ): B = 65 ° 40 ' to 64 ° North, L = 62 ° to 59 ° East; north of the Ural breakdown of the Schtschugor
Northern Urals ( Ural Severny ): B = 64 ° to 59 ° North, L = about 59 ° East; north of the upper course of the KOSWA
Middle Urals ( Ural Sredni ): B = 59 ° to 55 ° 40 'N, L = 58 ° to 61 ° East; north of the upper course of the Ufa
Southern Urals ( Yuzhny Ural ): B = 55 ° 40 ' to 52 ° North, L = 60 ° to 57 ° East; south of the headwaters of Ufa to the level of Orsk

Mountains

In the central north of the Urals is the highest at 1,895 m summit of the mountain, the Narodnaya. 169 km south of the Arctic Circle, is the local part of the Ural Mountains seen not only climatically represents a high mountain

A selection of mountains ( from north to south order ) at a glance:

F1 map with all coordinates of the section mountains: OSM, Google and Bing

The main rivers are springing in the Urals:

Add to Europe originate or flow:

In the north of the Urals: the current flowing to the Pechora Uzza and their tributaries

Some of the source rivers of flowing to the Volga Kama
The flowing southwest Ufa, Chusovaya, KOSWA, Sylva
The current flowing to the south, west, north Belaya, Ufa receives in the water of the Ufa

The current flowing to Ufa Jurjusan
The southwest to the Ural flowing Sakmara (~ 500 km)

Toward Asia originate or flow:

In the north- east of the Urals: some direct, short tributaries of the Ob

The northeast to whether flowing Sos'va Northern ( Severnaya Sos'va )
The current flowing in an easterly direction to the Irtysh Loswa and Sos'va

In the eastern directions for Tobol flowing Iset, Tagil, Tavda, Tura and Ui

The Eurasian river:

In the southeast and south of the Urals: the current flowing to the south Urals, which runs on the Inner Eurasian border; one of its source rivers forms a reservoir with the name energetics

Other major rivers in the vicinity of the Urals are: Emba and Tobol.

Towns

Among the cities and larger towns on or in the Urals include:

In the West ( European side ):

North to center: Vorkuta, Inta, Pechora
Southwest: Solikamsk Beresniki, Perm, Zlatoust, Ufa, Salavat

In the East (Asian side; Siberia):

Middle: Serov, Nizhny Tagil, Yekaterinburg ( Sverdlovsk to 1991 ), Kamensk- Uralski
Southeast: Chelyabinsk, Miass, Magnitogorsk

To the south:

Orenburg and Orsk (both on the Ural River ).

Ore mining and industry

In the central and southern Urals, a number of ore is mined, including iron (note the name Magnitogorsk ) and the noble metal platinum. Also semi - precious stones and are recovered. Moreover, here there were rich malachite occurrences for which the Ural was very well known. This mineral was also processed in the surrounding towns to high-quality jewelry, which also has a corresponding level of awareness thanks to its high quality. The Ural pointed next to Zaire, Shaba Province (formerly Katanga ), the world's most common and purest deposits of malachite on.

As in Central Europe ( see above genesis and Zechstein ) there are large deposits of mineral salts including very large Kalisalzlagerstätten in the western foothills ( Solikamsk ), and by the warm climate during the formation of mountains, coal, petroleum and natural gas.

The mineral wealth has also led to the development of several large centers of heavy industry, for which, for example, the names of Perm, Yekaterinburg and Magnitogorsk are. These sites of heavy industry struggling since the 1990s, the collapse of the Soviet Union, some with economic problems.

Earth's

The Ural was folded already in the middle and late Paleozoic. For his age 300-250 million years ago the mountain is still unusually high.

The first orogeny began in the geological ages of the Devonian and Carboniferous; previously ( in the Cambrian, about 500 million years ago ), the so-called Ural - ocean stretched between the then Urkontinenten Sibiria (today's North Asia ) and Fennosarmatia ( parts of present-day Northern and Eastern Europe ). The Variscan orogeny reached by the West Gondwana shift of a peak and produced the Appalachians and the Urals.

In the Permian ( 290-248 Ma ago) united by collisions of large continental plates all continents of the earth into a single " supercontinent " Pangaea. In the Urals this concerned mainly Laurasia and Sibiria and the lithosphere beneath the present-day Kazakhstan. The new super-continent was surrounded by the primeval ocean Panthalassa; Central Europe at that time was almost on the equator, and its desert climate led to the formation of powerful salt deposits. Later, when the Tethys from the east invaded Pangaea, it occurred about 250 million years ago to the extrusion of continental plateau basalts in Siberia, with the mass mortality is probably related.

In the Upper Permian in Europe began the demolition of the Variscan mountains and a spacious Meerestransgression (see also Zechstein Sea and geology of Poland). By push of Arctic sea to Central Europe was in the area of the later Ural a connection to the Tethys Ocean. From it the Urals folded on the transition from the Paleo- Mesozoic to. At the same time in Southern powerful carbonate sediments that now form parts of the Alps, and also the long geosyncline Andes later developed.

This large tectonic processes are a major cause for the mineral wealth of the Urals - see also the articles vein and Paleozoic.

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