World and Nature: Rainbow Mountains: Zhangye Danxia National Geological Park

carrizmex (39)in #travel • 6 years ago

Multicolored mountains of the Danxia Geological Park, China look like exits from an alien planet in a science fiction tale.

The Zhangye Danxia Geological National Park, or Zhangye Danxia National Geological Park, is located near the city of Zhangye, in Gansu Province, northwest of the People's Republic of China. With an area of 520 km². Declared a World Heritage Site by UNESCO in 2010. Known for its colorful mountains, it was voted by the Chinese media as one of the most beautiful geological formations of relief in China. The relief danxia (pink clouds) is the name given to a type of mountain relief in China, declared a World Heritage Site in 2010.

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Location:

The park is located on the northern slopes of the Qilian Mountains, in the counties of Linze and Sunan, which are under the administration of the city-prefecture of Zhangye, Gansu Province. The main areas of the Danxia relief are in the municipalities of Kangle and Baiyin.
The First Park: Linze Danxia, is located 30 km west of the city of Zhangye and 20 km south of the county seat of Linze. It is the most developed and most visited area of the park.

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A second place: Binggou Danxia, located on the north bank of the Liyuan River, officially opened on August 3, 2014. Binggou covers an area of 300 km², and its altitude varies between 1,500 and 2,500 meters above sea level.

A third area: The Sunan Danxia site, is located in Ganjun, south of Linze.

Relief:

Zhangye Danxia Park is known for the unusual colors of its multi-colored rock formations which have made it a remote corner of northern China, the show extends over 300 square kilometers and are the result of deposits of sandstones

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and other minerals that were produced more than 24 million years ago, with the successive deposits and sediments of different minerals in the rock layers, which then the action of the tectonic plates (which also created the Himalayas) was in charge of "wrinkling" and raising , and that the wind and the rain and the time have sculpted the mountains taking particular forms, as they are towers, columns and ravines, with different colors, models, measures. The natural pigments on the rock layers that the tectonic movements brought to the surface have colored them in a surrealist spectacle.