[图]委内瑞拉的罗赖马山

罗赖马山是南美洲北部帕卡赖马山脉的最高峰。在巴西、委内瑞拉和圭亚那三国交界处。为边缘陡峭、顶部平坦的桌状山地，长约14公里、宽5公里，海拔2810米。主要由砂岩构成。奥里诺科河系、亚马孙河系以及圭亚那的许多河流的发源地。山麓有金刚石、铝土矿藏。

这块台地约有3亿年历史，原为浩大的浅湖和三角洲，因地壳运动而隆起，后因侵蚀变成山和露出地面的岩层。在有些地方，例如在平顶山顶部尚能看到保存在岩石上的水波纹痕迹。

“罗赖马”是当地人称呼它的名字，意为“众河之母”。下大雨时水从这里流出，注入所有临近三国的河流中。

罗赖马山的西南岩壁约长6.2千米，止于托瓦兴尖峰。1912年阿瑟·柯南道尔爵士所著的小说《失去的世界》，就是以这部分的罗赖马山为背景的。那里曾是翼手龙及其他史前期怪兽的栖身处。

神奇的历史：Mount Roraima (2,810 m/9,219 feet) is the highest of tepuis, sandstone mesas (table mountains) scattered across the Guyana Highlands of northeastern South America. This impressive geological formation, one of the world’s oldest, is shared by Venezuela, Guyana and Brazil. The reports of early explorers inspired Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’sThe Lost World, probably the best adventure novel of all times.

Since long before the arrival of European explorers, the mountain has held a special significance for the indigenous people of the region, and it is central to many of their myths and legends.

The Pemon and Kapon natives of the Gran Sabana see Mount Roraima as the stump of a mighty tree that once held all the fruits and tuberous vegetables in the world. Felled by Makunaima, their mythical trickster, the tree crashed to the ground, unleashing a terrible flood. Roroi in the Pemon language means blue-green and ma means great.

成为世界影视文化关注焦点：In 2006, Mount Roraima was the destination for the award-winning Gryphon Productions two-hour television documentary The Real Lost World. The program was shown on Animal Planet, Discovery HD Theater and OLN (Canada). Directed by Peter von Puttkamer, this travel/adventure documentary featured a modern team of explorers—Rick West, Dr. Hazel Barton, Seth Heald, Dean Harrison and Peter Sprouse—who followed in the footsteps of British explorers Im Thurn and Harry Perkins who sought the flora and fauna of Roraima in the mid-19th century. The adventures of those explorers may have inspired Arthur Conan Doyle’s seminal book about people and dinosaurs, The Lost World, published in 1912. In 2006, The Real Lost World team were the first scientific team to explore the caves of Roraima, only recently discovered. Inside they found intriguing “carrot” formations growing in the 2 billion year old caves. Dr. Hazel Barton returned in 2007 on a NASA funded expedition to investigate the features growing on the cave walls and ceiling: evidence of extremophile cave microbes eating the silica-based walls of the cave and leaving dusty deposits on ancient spiderwebs, forming these unique stalactite type shapes.

In 2009, Mount Roraima served as inspiration for a location in the Disney/Pixar animated movie Up. The Blu-ray version of the movie disc bonus footage features a short film (called Adventure Is Out There) about some of the Pixarproduction team going to Mount Roraima and climbing it for inspiration and ideas for the making of Up.

鸣谢：

1. 委内瑞拉的罗赖马山美丽风景

2. Mount Roraima