The adjective montane is used to describe mountainous areas and things associated with them. Orology is its specialized field of studies, though the term is mostly replaced by "mountain studies". (Not to be confused with horology.)

Definitions

In the United States

In the United States, the U.S. Board on Geographic Names lists hundreds of landscape features under (some as low as 100 feet) named as "mountains." This is true for all parts of the United States, including the west coast where such lofty ranges as the Cascade Mountains dominate. And yet the Board does not attempt to distinguish between such features as mountains, hills, or other prominences, and simply categorizes all of them as summit, regardless of what they are called or how high they are. However, the Board does list and categorize such low mountain ranges as the Mount Tom Range (with a high point of 1,200 feet; 366 m) as range.1

Height

Other definitions of height are possible. The peak that is farthest from the center of the Earth is Chimborazo in Ecuador. At above sea level it is not even the tallest peak in the Andes, but because Chimborazo is very close to the equator and the Earth bulges at the equator, it is further away from the Earth's center than Everest. The peak that rises farthest from its base is Mauna Kea on Hawaii, whose peak is above its base on the floor of the Pacific Ocean. Mount Lamlam on Guam also lays claim to the tallest mountain as measured from it base. Although its peak is only above sea level, it measures to its base at the bottom of the Marianas Trench.

Even though Everest is the highest mountain on Earth today, there have been much taller mountains in the past. During the Precambrian era, the Canadian Shield once had mountains in height that are now eroded down into rolling hills. These formed by the collision of tectonic plates much like the Himalaya and the Rocky Mountains.

At (Fraknoi et al., 2004), the tallest known mountain in the solar system is Olympus Mons, located on Mars and is an ancient volcano. Volcanoes have been known to erupt on other planets and moons in our solar system and some of them erupt ice instead of lava (see Cryovolcano). Several years ago, the Hale telescope recorded the first known images of a volcano erupting on a moon in our solar system.Fact: date=September 2008