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61-489: The highest peak is Aragats in Armenia, 4,090 m (13,420 ft). The borders between Georgia, Turkey, Armenia , Azerbaijan and Iran run through the range, although its crest does not usually define the border. The range was historically called Anticaucasus or Anti-Caucasus (Greek : Αντι-Καύκασος, Russian : Антикавка́з, Анти-Кавка́з). This usage is commonly found in older sources. Current usage tends towards using

122-452: A topographic map . However, when the key col is far away, or when one wants to calculate the prominence of many peaks at once, software can apply surface network modeling to a digital elevation model to find exact or approximate key cols. Since topographic maps typically show elevation using contour lines , the exact elevation is typically bounded by an upper and lower contour, and not specified exactly. Prominence calculations may use

183-420: A "closer" peak than the encirclement parent (if there is one), which is still "better" than the peak in question. The differences lie in what criteria are used to define "closer" and "better." The (prominence) parent peak of peak A can be found by dividing the island or region in question into territories, by tracing the two hydrographic runoffs, one in each direction, downwards from the key col of every peak that

244-494: A "hierarchy" of peaks going back to the highest point on the island. One such chain in Britain would read: Billinge Hill → Winter Hill → Hail Storm Hill → Boulsworth Hill → Kinder Scout → Cross Fell → Helvellyn → Scafell Pike → Snowdon → Ben Nevis . At each stage in the chain, both height and prominence increase. Line parentage, also called height parentage, is similar to prominence parentage, but it requires

305-561: A 163-kilometre (101 mi) ring around the mountain after a blessing from Catholicos Karekin II . The organizers hoped the event would be included in the Guinness World Records . Prior to the dance, some 110,000 trees were planted on the slopes of Aragats. The following settlements are located on the slopes or foot of Aragats: Ashtarak , Artik , Aparan , Talin , Oshakan , Byurakan . Aragats has historically played

366-418: A 33-metre (108 ft) high cross, composed of 1711 large and small iron crosses, symbolizing the number of years since Armenia's conversion to Christianity in 301, was installed on a hill near the park. A cross is added on an annual basis. The Aragats Cosmic Ray Research Station is a cosmic-ray observatory near Lake Kari , at around 3,200 m (10,500 ft) above sea level. It was founded in 1943 by

427-424: A cutoff to form a list of peaks ranked by elevation is standard and is the most common use of the concept, it is also possible to use prominence as a mountain measure in itself. This generates lists of peaks ranked by prominence , which are qualitatively different from lists ranked by elevation. Such lists tend to emphasize isolated high peaks, such as range or island high points and stratovolcanoes . One advantage of

488-589: A distance of 17,755 km (11,032 miles), as well as the parent of the South Summit of Mount Everest at a distance of 360 m (1200 feet). The key col may also be close to the subject peak or far from it. The key col for Aconcagua, if sea level is disregarded, is the Bering Strait at a distance of 13,655 km (8,485 miles). The key col for the South Summit of Mount Everest

549-494: A given landmass, the highest peak's prominence will be identical to its elevation. An alternative equivalent definition is that the prominence is the height of the peak's summit above the lowest contour line encircling it, but containing no higher summit within it; see Figure 1. The parent peak may be either close or far from the subject peak. The summit of Mount Everest is the parent peak of Aconcagua in Argentina at

610-408: A great deal of information about the peak's position. In general, the analysis of parents and lineages is intimately linked to studying the topology of watersheds . Alteration of the landscape by humans and presence of water features can give rise to issues in the choice of location and height of a summit or col. In Britain, extensive discussion has resulted in a protocol that has been adopted by

671-485: A hierarchy which defines some peaks as subpeaks of others. For example, in Figure ;1, the middle peak is a subpeak of the right peak, which is a subpeak of the left peak, which is the highest point on its landmass. In that example, there is no controversy about the hierarchy; in practice, there are different definitions of parent. These different definitions follow. Also known as prominence island parentage , this

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732-418: A highest submerged col of about 40 m, or only 8888 m below the peak of Everest. As a result, Mauna Kea's prominence might be subjectively more impressive than Everest's, and some authorities have called it the tallest mountain from peak to underwater base. Dry prominence is also useful for measuring submerged seamounts . Seamounts have a dry topographic prominence, a topographic isolation , and

793-426: A mountain or hill's summit relative to the lowest contour line encircling it but containing no higher summit within it. It is a measure of the independence of a summit . The key col ("saddle") around the peak is a unique point on this contour line and the parent peak is some higher mountain, selected according to various criteria. The prominence of a peak is the least drop in height necessary in order to get from

854-409: A prominence cutoff criterion. The height parent is the closest peak to peak A (along all ridges connected to A) that has a greater height than A, and satisfies some prominence criteria. The disadvantage of this concept is that it goes against the intuition that a parent peak should always be more significant than its child. However it can be used to build an entire lineage for a peak which contains

915-437: A prominence-ranked list is that it needs no cutoff since a peak with high prominence is automatically an independent peak. It is common to define a peak's parent as a particular peak in the higher terrain connected to the peak by the key col. If there are many higher peaks there are various ways of defining which one is the parent, not necessarily based on geological or geomorphological factors. The "parent" relationship defines

976-538: A quarrel and separated permanently. Another legend tells that Gregory the Illuminator , who converted Armenia to Christianity in the early 4th century, "used to pray on the peak of the mountain. At nighttime an icon lamp shone to give light to him, the lamp hanging from heaven using no rope. Some say that the icon lamp is still there, but only the worthy ones can see it." In 1935, on the 15th anniversary of Armenia's Sovietization , around one thousand people climbed

1037-597: A significant role in Armenian history and culture. Numerous historical and modern monuments are located on its slopes, some of which are listed below. The 4th-century mausoleum of the Arsacid (Arshakuni) dynasty is located in the village of Aghtsk , on the slopes of Aragats. The early medieval fortress of Amberd and the nearby 11th-century Vahramashen Church are located on the slopes of Aragats, at an altitude of 2,300 m (7,500 ft). One source calls Amberd

1098-484: Is Aconcagua (6,960 m), in Argentina , and its prominence is 6,138 m. (To further illustrate the rising-sea model of prominence, if sea level rose 56 m, North and South America would be separate continents and Denali would be 6138 m, its current prominence, above sea level. At a slightly lower level, the continents would still be connected and the high point of the combined landmass would be Aconcagua,

1159-615: Is a stub . You can help Misplaced Pages by expanding it . Aragats Mount Aragats ( Armenian : Արագած , pronounced [ɑɾɑˈɡɑt͡s] ) is an isolated four-peaked volcano massif in Armenia . Its northern summit, at 4,090 m (13,420 ft) above sea level, is the highest point of the Lesser Caucasus and Armenia. It is also one of the highest points in the Armenian Highlands . The Aragats massif

1220-417: Is about 100 m (330 feet) distant. A way to visualize prominence is to imagine raising sea level so the parent peak and subject peak are two separate islands. Then lower it until a tiny land bridge forms between the two islands. This land bridge is the key col of the subject peak, and the peak's prominence is its elevation from that key col. Prominence is interesting to many mountaineers because it

1281-439: Is an objective measurement that is strongly correlated with the subjective significance of a summit. Peaks with low prominence are either subsidiary tops of some higher summit or relatively insignificant independent summits. Peaks with high prominence tend to be the highest points around and are likely to have extraordinary views. Only summits with a sufficient degree of prominence are regarded as independent mountains. For example,

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1342-443: Is becoming preferred. There are two varieties of topographic prominence: wet prominence and dry prominence. Wet prominence is the standard topographic prominence discussed in this article. Wet prominence assumes that the surface of the earth includes all permanent water, snow, and ice features. Thus, the wet prominence of the highest summit of an ocean island or landmass is always equal to the summit's elevation. Dry prominence, on

1403-406: Is defined as follows. In Figure 2 the key col of peak A is at the meeting place of two closed contours, one encircling A (and no higher peaks) and the other containing at least one higher peak. The encirclement parent of A is the highest peak that is inside this other contour. In terms of the falling-sea model, the two contours together bound an "island", with two pieces connected by an isthmus at

1464-527: Is depicted on the coat of arms of Gyumri. It is also depicted on the obverse side of the 10,000 Armenian dram banknote (in use since 2003) in the background of Avetik Isahakyan , a poet born in Gyumri. Numerous Armenian poets (e.g., Avetik Isahakyan) have written about Aragats. Marietta Shaginyan compared Aragats to a "half-open bud of a giant pomegranate flower ". In one short poem, Silva Kaputikyan compares Armenia to an "ancient rock-carved fortress",

1525-404: Is equal to its wet prominence (4205 m) plus the depth of its highest submerged col (about 5125 m). Totaling 9330 m, this is greater than any mountain apart from Everest. The dry prominence of Aconcagua is equal to its wet prominence (6960 m) plus the depth of the highest submerged col of the Bering Strait (about 40 m), or about 7000 m. It is worth noting Mauna Kea

1586-560: Is equal to its wet prominence plus the depth of its highest submerged col. Because Earth has no higher summit than Mount Everest , Everest's prominence is either undefined or its height from the lowest contour line. In a dry Earth, the lowest contour line would be the deepest hydrologic feature, the Challenger Deep , at 10,924 m depth. Everest's dry prominence would be this depth plus Everest's wet prominence of 8848 m, totaling 19,772 m. The dry prominence of Mauna Kea

1647-406: Is more prominent than peak A. The parent is the peak whose territory peak A is in. For hills with low prominence in Britain, a definition of "parent Marilyn " is sometimes used to classify low hills ("Marilyn" being a British term for a hill with a prominence of at least 150 m). This is found by dividing the region of Britain in question into territories, one for each Marilyn . The parent Marilyn

1708-457: Is not used because there is no obvious choice of cutoff. This choice of method might at first seem arbitrary, but it provides every hill with a clear and unambiguous parent peak that is taller and more prominent than the hill itself, while also being connected to it (via ridge lines). The parent of a low hill will also usually be nearby; this becomes less likely as the hill's height and prominence increase. Using prominence parentage, one may produce

1769-483: Is one of the largest in the region. More recent activity in flank centers occurred in Tirinkatar (0.48-0.61 Ma), Kakavasar, (0.52-0.54 Ma), and Ashtarak (0.58 Ma), as well as Jrbazhan in the summit area (0.52 Ma). The magmas feeding Aragats are unusually hot for arc-derived magmas, resulting in long and voluminous lava flows. Shortly after World War II, observations noted the presence of firn fields and snowfields on

1830-590: Is relatively close to its submerged key col in the Pacific Ocean, and the corresponding contour line that surrounds Mauna Kea is a relatively compact area of the ocean floor. Whereas a contour line around Everest that is lower than 9330m from Everest's peak would surround most of the major continents of the Earth. Even just surrounding Afro-Eurasia would run a contour line through the Bering Straight, with

1891-585: Is surrounded by the Kasagh River on the east, the Akhurian River on the west, Ararat Plain on the south, and Shirak Plain on the north. The circumference of the massif is around 200 km (120 mi), and covers an area of 6,000 km (2,300 sq mi) or around 1 ⁄ 5 of Armenia's total area. 944 km (364 sq mi) of the massif is located above 2,000 m (6,600 ft). According to Armenian tradition,

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1952-694: Is the Marilyn whose territory the hill's summit is in. If the hill is on an island (in Britain) whose highest point is less than 150 m, it has no parent Marilyn. Prominence parentage is the only definition used in the British Isles because encirclement parentage breaks down when the key col approaches sea level. Using the encirclement definition, the parent of almost any small hill in a low-lying coastal area would be Ben Nevis , an unhelpful and confusing outcome. Meanwhile, "height" parentage (see below)

2013-531: Is the most visited one. The hiking trail is approximately 5 kilometers long, and it typically takes between 2.5 and 3 hours to complete. Mount Aragats plays a special role in Armenian history and culture. Along with Ararat, it is considered a sacred mountain for the Armenians. Aragats is a male first name in Armenia, used especially in areas surrounding the mountain. Mt. Aragats is often associated with Gyumri , Armenia's second-largest city. The mountain

2074-600: The "biggest and the best preserved fortress" in modern-day Armenia. The Alphabet Park ( Tar’eri purak ) is located near the village of Artashavan . It was founded in 2005 on the 1600th anniversary of the invention of the Armenian alphabet . It features sculptures of the 39 letters of the Armenian alphabet and statues of notable Armenians, such as Mesrop Mashtots (the inventor of the alphabet), Armenia's national poet Hovhannes Tumanyan , Khachatur Abovian (father of modern Eastern Armenian literature), and others. In 2012,

2135-450: The 20th century. The ROT-54/2.6 , a radio telescope built in 1985 by the radiophysicist Paris Herouni in the village of Orgov , on the slopes of Aragats. On the highway leading to fortress Amberd is a gravity hill , which has become a tourist attraction, due to an optical illusion leading to a downhill slope appearing to be uphill. Mount Aragats is a popular hiking destination among locals and tourists. The southern, lowest peak

2196-580: The Russian part of Great Caucasus Range. Situated 40 kilometres (25 mi) northwest of the Armenian capital Yerevan , Aragats is a large volcano with numerous fissure vents and adventive cones . Numerous large lava flows descend from the volcano and are constrained in age between the middle Pleistocene and 3,000 BCE. The summit crater is cut by a 13 kilometres (8.1 mi) long line of cones which generated possibly Holocene-age lahars and lava flow. The volcanic system covers an area of 5,000 km and

2257-466: The U.S., 2000 ft (610 m) of prominence has become an informal threshold that signifies that a peak has major stature. Lists with a high topographic prominence cutoff tend to favor isolated peaks or those that are the highest point of their massif ; a low value, such as the Nuttalls', results in a list with many summits that may be viewed by some as insignificant. While the use of prominence as

2318-419: The brothers Artem Alikhanian and Abram Alikhanov . The Nor-Amberd station, built in 1960, is located at 2,000 m (6,600 ft). The Byurakan Observatory , established in 1946 by Victor Ambartsumian , is located on the southern slopes of Aragats, near the village of Byurakan , at an altitude of 1,405 m (4,610 ft). It made Armenia one of the world's centers for the study of astrophysics in

2379-408: The child peak. For example, one common use of the concept of parent is to make clear the location of a peak. If we say that Peak A has Mont Blanc for a parent, we would expect to find Peak A somewhere close to Mont Blanc. This is not always the case for the various concepts of parent, and is least likely to be the case for encirclement parentage. Figure 3 shows a schematic range of peaks with

2440-410: The color underlying the minor peaks indicating the encirclement parent. In this case the encirclement parent of M is H whereas an intuitive view might be that L was the parent. Indeed, if col "k" were slightly lower, L would be the true encirclement parent. The encirclement parent is the highest possible parent for a peak; all other definitions indicate a (possibly different) peak on the combined island,

2501-488: The disadvantage in using the encirclement parent. A hill in a low-lying area like the Netherlands will often be a direct child of Mount Everest , with its prominence about the same as its height and its key col placed at or near the foot of the hill, well below, for instance, the 113-meter-high key col of Mont Blanc . When the key col for a peak is close to the peak itself, prominence is easily computed by hand using

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2562-475: The encirclement parent.) While it is natural for Aconcagua to be the parent of Denali, since Denali is a major peak, consider the following situation: Peak A is a small hill on the coast of Alaska, with elevation 100 m and key col 50 m. Then the encirclement parent of Peak A is also Aconcagua, even though there will be many peaks closer to Peak A which are much higher and more prominent than Peak A (for example, Denali). This illustrates

2623-424: The foot of Aragats is named Alagyaz. Aragats is isolated from Armenia's other mountain ranges. However, it is considered part and the highest point of the larger Lesser Caucasus mountain range. It has four summits, which are named according to their relative geographic position: Mount Aragats has a topographic prominence of 2,143 meters, more than some higher mountains , such as Dykh-Tau (5,205 m high) in

2684-492: The high contour (giving in a pessimistic estimate ), the low contour (giving an optimistic estimate), their mean (giving a "midrange" or "rise" prominence ) or an interpolated value (customary in Britain). The choice of method depends largely on the preference of the author and historical precedent. Pessimistic prominence, (and sometimes optimistic prominence) were for many years used in USA and international lists, but mean prominence

2745-503: The key col. The encirclement parent is the highest point on this entire island. For example, the encirclement parent of Mont Blanc , the highest peak in the Alps , is Mount Everest . Mont Blanc's key col is a piece of low ground near Lake Onega in northwestern Russia (at 113 m (371 ft) elevation), on the divide between lands draining into the Baltic and Caspian Seas . This is

2806-459: The list, or cutoff . John and Anne Nuttall's The Mountains of England and Wales uses a cutoff of 15 m (about 50 ft), and Alan Dawson's list of Marilyns uses 150 m (about 500 ft). (Dawson's list and the term "Marilyn" are limited to Britain and Ireland). In the contiguous United States, the famous list of " fourteeners " (14,000 foot / 4268 m peaks) uses a cutoff of 300 ft / 91 m (with some exceptions). Also in

2867-435: The main sources of prominence data in Britain and Ireland. Other sources of data commonly ignore human-made alterations, but this convention is not universally agreed upon; for example, some authors discount modern structures but allow ancient ones. Another disagreement concerns mountaintop removal , though for high-prominence peaks (and for low-prominence subpeaks with intact summits), the difference in prominence values for

2928-600: The main vent, and subsidiary structures and was basaltic and andesitic in composition with ignimbrites and pyroclastic, with tuffs and lava flows emanating from satellite centers. It was the most voluminous and included the Shamiram and Yeghvard subsidiary centres. The third phase (0.74–0.68 Ma) while similar to the second was more restricted in regional extent to the Mantash River basin. The fourth stage (0.56–0.45 Ma) involved mafic lava flows from parasitic vents in

2989-420: The meeting place of two 113 m (371 ft) contours, one of them encircling Mont Blanc; the other contour encircles Mount Everest. This example demonstrates that the encirclement parent can be very far away from the peak in question when the key col is low. This means that, while simple to define, the encirclement parent often does not satisfy the intuitive requirement that the parent peak should be close to

3050-534: The mountain, was formed in 1995. A relatively modern name for the mountain is Alagöz ( Russian : Алагёз ), sometimes spelled Alagheuz , which literally means "variegated eye" in Turkish and Azerbaijani . This term was widely used up until the mid-20th century in European, Tsarist Russian , and early Soviet sources. Another version, Alagyaz ( Ալագյազ ), has been used in Armenian. A village on

3111-417: The name Lesser Caucasus, but Anti-caucasus can still be found in modern texts. This Asia mountain, mountain range, or peak related article is a stub . You can help Misplaced Pages by expanding it . This Georgia location article is a stub . You can help Misplaced Pages by expanding it . This Armenia location article is a stub . You can help Misplaced Pages by expanding it . This Turkey location article

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3172-681: The name of Aragats originates from the words Ara and gah , which translates to "Ara's throne", in reference to the legendary hero Ara the Beautiful . Aragats was mentioned by the early medieval historian Movses Khorenatsi , who in his History of Armenia claims that the mountain is named after Aramaneak  [ hy ] , the son of Hayk , the legendary patriarch of the Armenian people. Aramaneak called his possessions "the foot of Aragats" ( Old Armenian : ոտն Արագածոյ , romanized:  otn Aragatsoy or Արագածոտն , Aragatsotn ). The modern Aragatsotn Province , dominated by

3233-402: The other hand, ignores water, snow, and ice features and assumes that the surface of the earth is defined by the solid bottom of those features. The dry prominence of a summit is equal to its wet prominence unless the summit is the highest point of a landmass or island, or its key col is covered by snow or ice. If its highest surface col is on water, snow, or ice, the dry prominence of that summit

3294-407: The sides of the crater cirque as well as moraines and glaciers inside the crater. An analysis in 1896 indicated a surface area of 5.5-5.8 km , but it rapidly retreated afterward. The glaciation has been retreating on account of insufficient snowfall and increasing temperatures. Glacial meltwater dominates the upper part of the rivers descending from Aragats but its importance decreases farther down

3355-547: The southern parts of the volcano. Numerous engravings have been made around the volcano, including rock paintings portraying animals and human-like figures in the Kasagh River valley possibly dating to the early Holocene, and in Aghavnatun on the southern side of the volcano including petroglyphs showing animals that were possibly created in the 4th to 1st millennia BCE. According to an ancient Armenian legend, Aragats and Mount Ararat were loving sisters who parted after

3416-470: The summit of Aragats from five directions. On May 28, 2005—the anniversary of the establishment of the First Republic of Armenia —around 250,000 people participated in a Dance of Unity ( Armenian : Միասնության շուրջպար ) around Mount Aragats in a mass display of national unity. The quarter million participants, among them then-President Robert Kocharyan and Defense Minister Serzh Sargsyan , formed

3477-431: The summit to any higher terrain. This can be calculated for a given peak in the following manner: for every path connecting the peak to higher terrain, find the lowest point on the path; the key col (or highest saddle , or linking col , or link ) is defined as the highest of these points, along all connecting paths; the prominence is the difference between the elevation of the peak and the elevation of its key col. On

3538-590: The towers of which are Mount Aragats and Mount Ararat . Numerous artists have painted Aragats. Some examples of paintings of Aragats are kept at the National Gallery of Armenia . Topographic prominence In topography , prominence or relative height (also referred to as autonomous height , and shoulder drop in US English, and drop in British English) measures the height of

3599-501: The two conventions is typically relatively small. The key col and parent peak are often close to the sub-peak but this is not always the case, especially when the key col is relatively low. It is only with the advent of computer programs and geographical databases that thorough analysis has become possible . For example, the key col of Denali in Alaska (6,194 m) is a 56 m col near Lake Nicaragua . Denali's encirclement parent

3660-400: The valleys. Traces of prehistorical glaciation also exist including thick moraines in the summit area at an altitude of 2,600–3,000 m. The volcano was constructed in four different phases. The first phase (possibly 2.5Ma) occurred in the main crater and subsidiary vents and was basaltic andesite in composition. It crops out in deep gorges. The second phase (0.97–0.89 Ma, by K–Ar ) involved

3721-418: The world's second-highest mountain is K2 (height 8,611 m, prominence 4,017 m). While Mount Everest 's South Summit (height 8,749 m, prominence 11 m ) is taller than K2, it is not considered an independent mountain because it is a sub-summit of the main summit (which has a height and prominence of 8,848 m). Many lists of mountains use topographic prominence as a criterion for inclusion in

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