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Table Mountain
Table Mountain (Khoekhoe: Huriǂoaxa, lit. 'sea-emerging'; Afrikaans: Tafelberg) is a flat-topped mountain forming a prominent landmark overlooking the city of Cape Town in South Africa.
It is a significant tourist attraction, with many visitors using the cableway or hiking to the top. The mountain has 8,200 plant species, of which around 80% are fynbos (Afrikaans for 'fine bush'). Table Mountain National Park is the most visited national park in South Africa, attracting 4.2 million people every year for various activities. It forms part of the lands formerly ranged by Khoe-speaking clans, such as the !Uriǁʼaes (the "High Clan").
Table Mountain is home to a large array of mostly endemic fauna and flora. Its top elevates about 1,000 m above the surrounding city, making the popular hike upwards on a large variety of different, often steep and rocky pathways a serious mountain tour which requires fitness, preparation and hiking equipment.
The main feature of Table Mountain is the level plateau approximately three kilometres (2 mi) from side to side, edged by steep cliffs. The plateau, flanked by Devil's Peak to the east and by Lion's Head to the west, forms a dramatic backdrop to Cape Town. This broad sweep of mountainous heights, together with Signal Hill, forms the natural amphitheatre of the City Bowl and Table Bay harbour. The highest point on Table Mountain is towards the eastern end of the plateau and is marked by Maclear's Beacon, a stone cairn built in 1865 by Sir Thomas Maclear for trigonometrical survey. It is 1,086 metres (3,563 ft) above sea level, and about 19 metres (62 ft) higher than the cable station at the western end of the plateau.
The cliffs of the main plateau are split by Platteklip Gorge ("Flat Stone Gorge"), which provides an easy and direct ascent to the summit and was the route taken by António de Saldanha on the first recorded ascent of the mountain in 1503.
The flat top of the mountain is often covered by orographic clouds, formed when a southeasterly wind is directed up the mountain's slopes into colder air, where the moisture condenses to form the so-called "table cloth" of cloud. Legend attributes this phenomenon to a smoking contest between the Devil and a local pirate called Van Hunks. When the table cloth is seen, it symbolizes the contest.
Table Mountain is at the northern end of a sandstone mountain range that forms the spine of the Cape Peninsula that terminates approximately 50 kilometres (30 mi) to the south at the Cape of Good Hope and Cape Point. Immediately to the south of Table Mountain is a rugged "plateau" at a somewhat lower elevation than the Table Mountain Plateau (at about 1,000 m or 3,300 ft), called the "Back Table". The "Back Table" extends southwards for approximately 6 km to the Constantia Nek-Hout Bay valley. The Atlantic side of the Back Table is known as the Twelve Apostles, which extends from Kloof Nek (the saddle between Table Mountain and Lion's Head) to Hout Bay. The eastern side of this portion of the Peninsula's mountain chain, extending from Devil's Peak, the eastern side of Table Mountain (Erica and Fernwood Buttresses), and the Back Table to Constantia Nek, does not have a single name, as on the western side. It is better known by the names of the conservation areas on its lower slopes: Groote Schuur Estate, Newlands Forest, Kirstenbosch Botanical Gardens, Cecilia Park, and Constantia Nek.
The upper approximately 600-metre (2,000 ft) portion of the one-kilometre-high (0.62 mi) table-topped mountain, or mesa, consists of 450- to 510-million-year-old (Ordovician) rocks belonging to the two lowermost layers of the Cape Fold Mountains. The uppermost, and younger of the two layers, consists of extremely hard quartzitic sandstone, commonly referred to as "Table Mountain Sandstone" (TMS), or "Peninsula Formation Sandstone" (as it is known as at present), which is highly resistant to erosion and forms characteristic steep grey crags. The 70-metre-thick (230 ft) lower layer, known as the "Graafwater Formation", consists of distinctively maroon-colored mudstones, which were laid down in much thinner horizontal strata than the Table Mountain Sandstone strata above it. The Graafwater rocks can best be seen just above the contour path on the front of Table Mountain, and around Devils Peak. They can also been seen in the cutting along Chapman's Peak Drive. These rocks are believed to have originated in shallow tidal flats, in which a few Ordovician fossils, and fossil tracks have been preserved. The overlying TMS probably arose in deeper water, either as a result of subsidence, or a rise in the sea level. The Graafwater rocks rest on the basement consisting of Cape Granite. Devil's Peak, Signal Hill, the City Bowl and much of the "Cape Flats", however, rest on heavily folded and altered phyllites and hornfelses known informally as the Malmesbury shales. The Cape Granite and Malmesbury shales form the lower, gentler slopes of the Table Mountain range on the Cape Peninsula. They are of late Precambrian age, pre-dating the "Graafwater rocks" by at least 40 million years.
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Table Mountain
Table Mountain (Khoekhoe: Huriǂoaxa, lit. 'sea-emerging'; Afrikaans: Tafelberg) is a flat-topped mountain forming a prominent landmark overlooking the city of Cape Town in South Africa.
It is a significant tourist attraction, with many visitors using the cableway or hiking to the top. The mountain has 8,200 plant species, of which around 80% are fynbos (Afrikaans for 'fine bush'). Table Mountain National Park is the most visited national park in South Africa, attracting 4.2 million people every year for various activities. It forms part of the lands formerly ranged by Khoe-speaking clans, such as the !Uriǁʼaes (the "High Clan").
Table Mountain is home to a large array of mostly endemic fauna and flora. Its top elevates about 1,000 m above the surrounding city, making the popular hike upwards on a large variety of different, often steep and rocky pathways a serious mountain tour which requires fitness, preparation and hiking equipment.
The main feature of Table Mountain is the level plateau approximately three kilometres (2 mi) from side to side, edged by steep cliffs. The plateau, flanked by Devil's Peak to the east and by Lion's Head to the west, forms a dramatic backdrop to Cape Town. This broad sweep of mountainous heights, together with Signal Hill, forms the natural amphitheatre of the City Bowl and Table Bay harbour. The highest point on Table Mountain is towards the eastern end of the plateau and is marked by Maclear's Beacon, a stone cairn built in 1865 by Sir Thomas Maclear for trigonometrical survey. It is 1,086 metres (3,563 ft) above sea level, and about 19 metres (62 ft) higher than the cable station at the western end of the plateau.
The cliffs of the main plateau are split by Platteklip Gorge ("Flat Stone Gorge"), which provides an easy and direct ascent to the summit and was the route taken by António de Saldanha on the first recorded ascent of the mountain in 1503.
The flat top of the mountain is often covered by orographic clouds, formed when a southeasterly wind is directed up the mountain's slopes into colder air, where the moisture condenses to form the so-called "table cloth" of cloud. Legend attributes this phenomenon to a smoking contest between the Devil and a local pirate called Van Hunks. When the table cloth is seen, it symbolizes the contest.
Table Mountain is at the northern end of a sandstone mountain range that forms the spine of the Cape Peninsula that terminates approximately 50 kilometres (30 mi) to the south at the Cape of Good Hope and Cape Point. Immediately to the south of Table Mountain is a rugged "plateau" at a somewhat lower elevation than the Table Mountain Plateau (at about 1,000 m or 3,300 ft), called the "Back Table". The "Back Table" extends southwards for approximately 6 km to the Constantia Nek-Hout Bay valley. The Atlantic side of the Back Table is known as the Twelve Apostles, which extends from Kloof Nek (the saddle between Table Mountain and Lion's Head) to Hout Bay. The eastern side of this portion of the Peninsula's mountain chain, extending from Devil's Peak, the eastern side of Table Mountain (Erica and Fernwood Buttresses), and the Back Table to Constantia Nek, does not have a single name, as on the western side. It is better known by the names of the conservation areas on its lower slopes: Groote Schuur Estate, Newlands Forest, Kirstenbosch Botanical Gardens, Cecilia Park, and Constantia Nek.
The upper approximately 600-metre (2,000 ft) portion of the one-kilometre-high (0.62 mi) table-topped mountain, or mesa, consists of 450- to 510-million-year-old (Ordovician) rocks belonging to the two lowermost layers of the Cape Fold Mountains. The uppermost, and younger of the two layers, consists of extremely hard quartzitic sandstone, commonly referred to as "Table Mountain Sandstone" (TMS), or "Peninsula Formation Sandstone" (as it is known as at present), which is highly resistant to erosion and forms characteristic steep grey crags. The 70-metre-thick (230 ft) lower layer, known as the "Graafwater Formation", consists of distinctively maroon-colored mudstones, which were laid down in much thinner horizontal strata than the Table Mountain Sandstone strata above it. The Graafwater rocks can best be seen just above the contour path on the front of Table Mountain, and around Devils Peak. They can also been seen in the cutting along Chapman's Peak Drive. These rocks are believed to have originated in shallow tidal flats, in which a few Ordovician fossils, and fossil tracks have been preserved. The overlying TMS probably arose in deeper water, either as a result of subsidence, or a rise in the sea level. The Graafwater rocks rest on the basement consisting of Cape Granite. Devil's Peak, Signal Hill, the City Bowl and much of the "Cape Flats", however, rest on heavily folded and altered phyllites and hornfelses known informally as the Malmesbury shales. The Cape Granite and Malmesbury shales form the lower, gentler slopes of the Table Mountain range on the Cape Peninsula. They are of late Precambrian age, pre-dating the "Graafwater rocks" by at least 40 million years.