Chimborazo (6268 m) Andes, Ecuador

Chimborazo is a currently inactive stratovolcano located in the Cordillera Occidental range of the Andes. Its last known eruption is believed to have occurred around 550 AD. With a peak elevation of 6,268 metres, Chimborazo is the highest mountain in Ecuador. It is the highest peak in proximity to the equator. While Chimborazo is not the highest mountain by elevation above sea level, its location along the equatorial bulge makes its summit the farthest point on the Earth's surface from the Earth's center.

Chimborazo is located in the Cordillera Occidental of the Andes of central Ecuador, 150 km south-southwest of the capital Quito. It is a neighbor to 5,018 m high Carihuairazo. Chimborazo's summit rises 2,500 m above the surrounding highlands (~3,500 to 4,000 m) with a ~20 km wide base. Under clear conditions the summit of Chimborazo can be seen from the coastal city Guayaquil, nearly 140 km away. The nearest cities are Riobamba (~30 km to the southeast), Ambato (~30 km to the northeast) and Guaranda (~25 km to the southwest). Chimborazo is surrounded by the Reserva de Produccion Faunistica Chimborazo which forms a protected ecosystem to preserve the habitat for the Andes native camelids of vicuña, llama and alpaca. Chimborazo is located at the main end of the Ecuadorian Volcanic Arc. Chimborazo is a dominantly andesitic-dacitic stratovolcano. About 35,000 years ago a collapse of Chimborazo produced a debris avalanche, the deposits of which underlie the city of Riobamba. Chimborazo then erupted several times during the Holocene, the last time around 550 AD ± 150 years. Today Chimborazo is considered inactive.
With an elevation of 6,268 m, Chimborazo is the highest mountain in Ecuador and the Andes north of Peru; it is higher than any more northerly summit in the Americas. The summit of Mount Everest reaches a higher elevation above sea level, but the summit of Chimborazo is widely reported to be the farthest point on the surface from Earth's center, with Huascarán a very close second. The summit of the Chimborazo is the fixed point on Earth which has the utmost distance from the center – because of the oblate spheroid shape of the planet Earth which is "thicker" around the Equator than measured around the poles. Chimborazo is one degree south of the Equator and the Earth's diameter at the Equator is greater than at the latitude of Everest (8,848 m above sea level), nearly 28° north, with sea level also elevated. Despite being 2,580 m lower in elevation above sea level, it is 6,384.4 km from the Earth's center, 2,168 m farther than the summit of Everest (6,382.3 km from the Earth's center). However, by the criterion of elevation above sea level, Chimborazo is not even the highest peak of the Andes.

/Wikipedia.org/

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