Cordillera Paine
Template:Short description Template:About Template:Infobox mountain The Cordillera Paine is a mountain group in Torres del Paine National Park in Chilean Patagonia. The cordillera is located Template:Convert north of Punta Arenas, and about Template:Cvt south of the Chilean capital Santiago. It belongs to the Commune of Torres del Paine in Última Esperanza Province of Magallanes and Antártica Chilena Region. No accurate surveys have been published, and published elevations have been claimed to be seriously inflated, so most of the elevations given on this page are approximate.<ref name="biggar">Biggar, John, 2015. The Andes: A Guide for Climbers (4th edition, Template:ISBN). Several elevations given by this authority are much lower than those given by other authorities, and the higher elevations are not supported by official Chilean IGM maps.</ref> Paine means "blue" in the native Tehuelche (Aonikenk) language and is pronounced PIE-nay.<ref>Abraham, Rudolf (2011). Torres del Paine: Trekking in Chile's Premier National Park. Milnthorpe: Cicerone Press. p. 17. Template:ISBN. Retrieved 4 August 2015.</ref>
Peaks
The highest summit of the range is Cerro Paine Grande. For a long time its elevation was claimed to be Template:Cvt, but in August 2011 it was ascended for the third time, measured using GPS and found to be Template:Cvt.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>
The three Towers of Paine (Template:Langx) form the centrepiece of Parque Nacional Torres del Paine. The South Tower of Paine (about Template:Cvt in elevation,<ref name="biggar"/> is now thought to be the highest of the three, although this has not been definitely established. It was first climbed in 1963 by Armando Aste.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> The Central Tower (about Template:Cvt<ref name="biggar"/> in elevation) was first climbed in 1963 by Chris Bonington and Don Whillans. In 2017, three Belgian climbers, Nico Favresse, Siebe Vanhee and Sean Villanueva O'Driscoll, made the first free ascent up the rock face, which is about Template:Cvt.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> The North Tower (about Template:Cvt in elevation) was first climbed in 1958 by Guido Monzino.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>
Other summits include the Cuerno Principal, about Template:Cvt in elevation,<ref name="biggar" /> and Cerro Paine Chico, which is usually quoted at about Template:Cvt.<ref name="biggar" />
Geology
The range is made up of a yellowish granite underlain by grey gabbro-diorite laccolith and the sedimentary rocks it intrudes, deeply eroded by glaciers. The steep, light colored faces are eroded from the tougher, vertically jointed granitic rocks, while the foothills and dark cap rocks are the sedimentary country rock, in this case flysch deposited in the Cretaceous and later folded.<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref>
The radiometric age for the quartz diorite at Cerro Paine is 12Template:Nbsp±Template:Nbsp2 million years by the rubidium-strontium method and 13Template:Nbsp±Template:Nbsp1 million years by the potassium-argon method.<ref>Martin Halpern "Regional Geochronology of Chile South of 50 degrees Latitude", Bulletin Geological Society of America, v. 84, p. 2410, 1973.</ref> More precise ages of 12.59Template:Nbsp±Template:Nbsp0.02 and 12.50Template:Nbsp±Template:Nbsp0.02 million years for the earliest and latest identified phases of the intrusion, respectively, were achieved using Uranium–lead dating methods on single zircon crystals.<ref>Juergen Michel, Lukas Baumgartner, Benita Putlitz, Urs Schaltegger and Maria Ovtcharova, Incremental growth of the Patagonian Torres del Paine Laccolith over 90 k.y., Geology, 36(6):459–462, 2008.</ref> Basal gabbro and diorite were dated by a similar technique to 12.472Template:Nbsp±Template:Nbsp0.009 to 12.431Template:Nbsp±Template:Nbsp0.006 million years.<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref> Thus, magma was intruded and crystallized over 162Template:Nbsp±Template:Nbsp11 thousand years. High resolution dating and excellent 3-D exposure of the laccolith and its vertical feeding system allow detailed reconstruction of the Torres del Paine fossil magma chamber history.<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref>
Hiking
The Torres del Paine National Park—an area of Template:Cvt—was declared a Biosphere Reserve by the UNESCO in 1978 and receives about 250,000 visitors annually.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> Trails and some campsites are maintained by Chile's National Forest Corporation, and mountain huts provide shelter and basic services.
See also
References
- Biggar, John, 2015. The Andes: A Guide for Climbers (4th edition, Template:ISBN).
- Kearney, Alan, 1993. Mountaineering in Patagonia. Seattle USA: Cloudcap.
