The Jebal Barez is a mountain chain in the

Kerman Province Kerman province () is the largest of the 31 provinces of Iran. Its capital is the city of Kerman. The province is in the southeast of Iran. In 2014 it was placed in Region 5. Mentioned in ancient times as the Achaemenid satrapy of Carma ...

Iran Iran, officially the Islamic Republic of Iran (IRI) and also known as Persia, is a country in West Asia. It borders Iraq to the west, Turkey, Azerbaijan, and Armenia to the northwest, the Caspian Sea to the north, Turkmenistan to the nort ...

. This mountain range stretches for some 100 km north-west to south-east, parallel to the Halil Rud, to the north-east of Jiroft and to the south-west of Bam, rising to a maximum elevation of 3,750 m. The mountains of this range are continued by other mountains such as Mount Shahsavaran and Mount Hudian to the south-east. They separate the plain of Hamun-e Jaz Murian from that of Namakzar-e Shahdad and Lut desert.

Etymology

The root of the name of this mountain is identical to that of the Alburz in northern Iran and the

Elbrus Mount Elbrus; ; is the highest mountain in Russia and Europe. It is a dormant volcano, dormant stratovolcano rising above sea level, and is the highest volcano in Eurasia, as well as the List of mountain peaks by prominence, tenth-most promi ...

in the

Caucasus The Caucasus () or Caucasia (), is a region spanning Eastern Europe and Western Asia. It is situated between the Black Sea and the Caspian Sea, comprising parts of Southern Russia, Georgia, Armenia, and Azerbaijan. The Caucasus Mountains, i ...

, and therefore, it is likewise derived from an unattested

Old Persian Old Persian is one of two directly attested Old Iranian languages (the other being Avestan) and is the ancestor of Middle Persian (the language of the Sasanian Empire). Like other Old Iranian languages, it was known to its native speakers as (I ...

term *''Harā Brzatī'', cognate with

Avestan Avestan ( ) is the liturgical language of Zoroastrianism. It belongs to the Iranian languages, Iranian branch of the Indo-European languages, Indo-European language family and was First language, originally spoken during the Avestan period, Old ...

''Harā Bərəzaitī'' (see Harā Bərəzaitī), meaning "high watchpost". The more proper spelling of the name of this mountain is Albarez. ''Albarez'' is of the same construct as the names Alburz and

. The ancient Iranian people seem to have given this name to the tallest mountains in any area that they happened to live (exactly as the Turkic people did when they called all the tallest mountains in their sight, " Qaradağ"/ Karadag, with the term qara/kara standing for great/big, as well as color black). In fact, into the early 20th century, the northern portions of the

Hindu Kush The Hindu Kush is an mountain range in Central Asia, Central and South Asia to the west of the Himalayas. It stretches from central and eastern Afghanistan into northwestern Pakistan and far southeastern Tajikistan. The range forms the wester ...

mountains near

Balkh Balkh is a town in the Balkh Province of Afghanistan. It is located approximately to the northwest of the provincial capital city Mazar-i-Sharif and approximately to the south of the Amu Darya and the Afghanistan–Uzbekistan border. In 2021 ...

/ Mazar-i Sharif was also known as Mt. Alburz, as recorded by the British travelers like

Alexander Burnes Captain Sir Alexander Burnes (16 May 1805 – 2 November 1841) was a Scottish explorer, military officer and diplomat associated with the Great Game. He was nicknamed Bokhara Burnes for his role in establishing contact with and expl ...

Geology

Made chiefly of

Eocene The Eocene ( ) is a geological epoch (geology), epoch that lasted from about 56 to 33.9 million years ago (Ma). It is the second epoch of the Paleogene Period (geology), Period in the modern Cenozoic Era (geology), Era. The name ''Eocene'' comes ...

extrusive Extrusive rock refers to the mode of igneous volcanic rock formation in which hot magma from inside the Earth flows out (extrudes) onto the surface as lava or explodes violently into the atmosphere to fall back as pyroclastics or tuff. In contr ...

and intrusive rocks, Jebal Barez mountain chain is situated in what is called the Central Iranian Range, the Sahand- Bazman volcanic range or belt, a mountain range which was formed mainly during Eocene

volcanism Volcanism, vulcanism, volcanicity, or volcanic activity is the phenomenon where solids, liquids, gases, and their mixtures erupt to the surface of a solid-surface astronomical body such as a planet or a moon. It is caused by the presence of a he ...

and

plutonism Plutonism is the geology, geologic theory that the igneous rocks forming the Earth originated from intrusive Magma, magmatic activity, with a continuing gradual process of weathering and erosion wearing away rocks, which were then deposited on t ...

and that stretches approximately from Sahand Volcano in the north-west of Iran to Bazman Volcano in the south-east of Iran.Geological Map of Iran, National Geoscience Database of Iran, www.ngdir.ir

References

External links

* {{coord, 28, 34, N, 58, 14, E, display=title Mountains of Kerman Province Landforms of Kerman province