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The Western Ghats or Sahyadri (Tamil: மேற்குத் தொடர்ச்சி மலை, Malayalam: സഹ്യാദ്രി , Kannada: ಸಹ್ಯಾದ್ರಿ , Marathi: सह्याद्री) are a mountain range that runs almost parallel to the western coast of the Indian peninsula, located entirely in India. It is a UNESCO World Heritage Site and is one of the eight "hottest hotspots" of biological diversity in the world.〔(【引用サイトリンク】title=''Biodiversity hotspots for conservation priorities'' )〕〔(【引用サイトリンク】title=''UN designates Western Ghats as world heritage site'' )〕 It is sometimes called the Great Escarpment of India. The range runs north to south along the western edge of the Deccan Plateau, and separates the plateau from a narrow coastal plain, called Konkan, along the Arabian Sea. A total of thirty nine properties including national parks, wildlife sanctuaries and reserve forests were designated as world heritage sites - twenty in Kerala, ten in Karnataka, five in Tamil Nadu and four in Maharashtra. The range starts near the border of Gujarat and Maharashtra, south of the Tapti river, and runs approximately through the states of Maharashtra, Goa, Karnataka, Kerala and Tamil Nadu ending at Kanyakumari, at the southern tip of India. These hills cover and form the catchment area for complex riverine drainage systems that drain almost 40% of India. The Western Ghats block southwest monsoon winds from reaching the Deccan Plateau. The average elevation is around . The area is one of the world's ten "Hottest biodiversity hotspots" and has over 7,402 species of flowering plants,1814 species of non-flowering plants, 139 mammal species, 508 bird species, 179 amphibian species, 6000 insects species and 290 freshwater fish species; it is likely that many undiscovered species live in the Western Ghats. At least 325 globally threatened species occur in the Western Ghats. ==Geology== The Western Ghats are the mountainous faulted and eroded edge of the Deccan Plateau. Geologic evidence indicates that they were formed during the break-up of the supercontinent of Gondwana some 150 million years ago. Geophysical evidence indicates that the west coast of India came into being somewhere around 100 to 80 mya after it broke away from Madagascar. After the break-up, the western coast of India would have appeared as an abrupt cliff some in elevation. Basalt is the predominant rock found in the hills reaching a thickness of . Other rock types found are charnockites, granite gneiss, khondalites, leptynites, metamorphic gneisses with detached occurrences of crystalline limestone, iron ore, dolerites and anorthosites. Residual laterite and bauxite ores are also found in the southern hills. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Western Ghats」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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