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Yushan (), also Mount Yu is the highest mountain in Taiwan and the fourth highest mountain on an island. The name of Mount Morrison is thought to have been named in honor of the 19th century missionary Robert Morrison. Today, the mountain is referred to as Yushan or Jade Mountain. In the winter, Yushan is often capped with thick snow which makes the entire peak shine like stainless jade, hence its name. On July 21, 2009, Yushan was elected one of 28 finalists in the New7Wonders of Nature voting campaign. It even had held the top position in the “Mountains and Volcanoes” category on the list of first round voting of the 77 nominees ended on July 7, 2009. Yushan and surrounding mountains belong to Yushan Range, which is part of Yushan National Park. The national park is Taiwan's largest, highest and least accessible national park. It contains the largest tract of wilderness remaining in Taiwan and is also valued for its pristine forests and faunal diversity, including many endemic species. The highest point of Yushan Range, Yushan, is above sea level, and is the highest point in the western Pacific region outside of the Kamchatka Peninsula. Yushan was once in the ocean and raised to the current height because the Eurasian Plate slid under the neighboring Philippine Sea Plate. The ocean waters off Taiwan's east coast are deep; in fact, submarine slopes plunge down to the Pacific Ocean at a grade of 1:10 and the ocean reaches a depth of more than about from the coast.〔(Central Geological Survey, MOEA. )〕 ==Geography and geology== The island of Taiwan is situated at the intersection of two tectonic plates – the Eurasian Plate and the Philippine Sea Plate. Even as “recently” as the late Paleozoic (some 250 million years ago), the land here was still but a sedimentary seabed layered with silt and sand. As the two plates began pressing against each other, the land buckled, bent, and created the landscape – 165 mountains higher than above sea level on a small island (38th in the world). Yushan is also notable in containing the highest point on the Tropic of Cancer and the ''only'' point on that circle of latitude where there is any evidence of Quaternary glaciation.〔(Late Pleistocene to Early Holocen Glacial Landforms of Yushan Area, Taiwan )〕 As recently as seventeen thousand years ago, permanent ice caps existed throughout Taiwan’s highest mountains and extended owing to the wet climate down to ; whereas currently the nearest glaciers to the Tropic of Cancer are in Mexico on the Iztaccíhuatl volcano. 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「Yushan (mountain)」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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