Rainbow Mountain phenomenon in Zhangye National Park, China
Maybe we've ever thought about rainbows?
As we all know, rainbows always appear in the sky due to two elements, namely the presence of sunlight and raindrops. When the sun shines on the rain, the rainwater reflects the light and refracts various colors.
It turns out that on our earth there are indeed areas that are touched by the colors of the rainbow, but this time it is the result of processes that occur on land, in contrast to the rainbow above the sky that occurs in the sky.
This phenomenon is called the natural phenomenon of the rainbow mountain. What's that? This phenomenon is a phenomenon where the plains in the mountains are composed of various colors, not only green like a meadow, or brown and so on, but colorful like a rainbow and like a painting.
In this world there are several countries that have the natural phenomenon of the rainbow mountain. One of them is in China, precisely in the Zhangye Danxia Geological Park. The mountains there are very famous for their rainbow-like colors painted over the peaks of the mountains.
Zhangye Danxia National Park is located in Gansu province in northwest China with an area of 200 sq. The mountain was added to a UNESCO World Heritage site in 2009 and is a destination for many tourists from China and internationally.
This Rainbow Mountain in China was originally discovered by accident by local people who at first were just taking a walk and then found a beautiful man-made landscape. Then the mountains in the early 2000s were named Mount Pelangi or Rainbow Mountains and became famous among travelers around the world. Since the beautiful photos of Mount Pelangi circulating in cyberspace.
The Cause of the Rainbow Mountain
The striped and colorful layers of the mountains are thought to have been formed by underwater volcanic eruptions that occurred millions of years ago. The eruption was not only once but many times. Because of the eruption, the substances that are in the bowels of the earth are also vomited out of the earth. These substances are calcium, iron and copper.
Every volcanic eruption there brings different metal and mineral materials. There are soil materials that contain calcium, sulfur, iron and copper. When the material comes out, the iron that is not in the bowels of the earth rusts and becomes red in color. Then the next eruption came out a copper substance, after a long time it turned green. Then another eruption, the colors are getting mixed up to black and become colorful.
The Process of the Occurrence of Rainbow Mountain
At that time, the plain which was originally flat and horizontal was then disturbed by the Indian plate and collided into the Eurasian Plate about 55 million years ago. If you imagine the collision process is like the collision of 2 cars and the hood of the car forms waves like folds. The process creates uneven folds and becomes like a mountain. More specifically, it is a steep and steep sandstone mountain.
This process lifts mountains and makes sedimentary rock that was originally hidden beneath the earth's surface. Weathering and erosion removes the overlying layer of siliciclastic rock or siliciclastic sedimentary rock, i.e. rock formed from fragments of other rock or original rock, creating chemical and mineralogy formations that differ from one another. to all chemical substances, the mineralogy has a striking color. This is what makes the color on the surface of the mountain become colorful.
In addition to Rainbow Mountains in Zhangye Danxia National Park, we can find rainbow mountains in several countries, namely:
1. Brennisteinsalda, Islandia
2. Painted Hills di Oregon, Amerika Serikat
3. Seven Coloured Earths of Chamarel, Mauritius
4.Gunung Pelangi, Peru
that's a little explanation about China's Zhangye National Park. in the next post we will discuss other rainbow mountains in the world
