100 kilometers southeast of Cusco, Peru there is a rainbow colored mountain.
It is referred to as the the Mountain of Seven Colors, Vinicunca, or Rainbow.
This mountain is located in the Vilcanota mountain range, 5,200 meters above sea level, in the Pitumarca District.
Its slopes and peaks are dyed by stripes of startling shades of fuchsia, turquoise, lavender, and gold.
EThe spectacle that Vinicunca offers has been attracting visitors since the beginning of 2016, as Haydee Pacheco, tourism official at the Municipality of Pitumarca, told BBC World.
Vinicunca’s rainbow appearance is due to “a complex geological history of marine, lake and river sediments”, according to a report by the Cultural Landscape Office at the Decentralized Directorate of Culture of Cusco.
These sediments, carried in by the water that previously covered the area, date from between the Tertiary and Quaternary Periods, that is, from about 65 to two million years ago.
Over time, the sediments formed layers (with different grain sizes), which today comprise the stripes that make this site so magnificent.
The movement of the tectonic plates in the area lifted these sediments until they became mountains.
They then acquired their striking colors due to the oxidation of their minerals, quickened by the humidity of the area, and their erosion, as César Muñoz, a member of the Geological Society of Peru (SGP) explained to BBC World.
Muñoz and a study conducted by the Office of Cultural Landscape detail the composition of each stripe according to its color:
- Pink or fuchsia: mixture of red clay, mudstone, and sand
- Whitish: sandstone (quartz sand) and limestone
- Purple or lavender: loam (mixture of clay and calcium carbonate) and silicates
- Red: argillite and clay
- Green: clays rich in ferromagnesian minerals (mixture of iron and magnesium) and copper oxide
- Yellowish brown, mustard or golden brown: limonites and calcareous sandstones rich in sulfur minerals (combined with sulfur)
Fabián Drenkhan, researcher for the Instituto de Ciencias de la Naturaleza de la Pontificia Universidad Católica del Perú, has indicated to BBC World that these mixtures also contain iron oxides, which are usually reddish in color. (Source: BBC World)
