The Jinping Mountains or Jinping Shan () are a short north-south

mountain range A mountain range or hill range is a series of mountains or hills arranged in a line and connected by high ground. A mountain system or mountain belt is a group of mountain ranges with similarity in form, structure, and alignment that have arise ...

in southwestern

Sichuan Province Sichuan (; zh, c=, labels=no, ; zh, p=Sìchuān; alternatively romanized as Szechuan or Szechwan; formerly also referred to as "West China" or "Western China" by Protestant missions) is a province in Southwest China occupying most of the ...

China China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. It is the world's most populous country, with a population exceeding 1.4 billion, slightly ahead of India. China spans the equivalent of five time zones and ...

. The Jinping are located within

Yanyuan Yanyuan County (; ii, ꋂꂿꑤ ce mo xiep) is a county in Liangshan Prefecture, Sichuan Province, China, bordering Yunnan province to the west. The county is located in Sichuan's rugged Hengduan Mountains in southwest Sichuan, but the county se ...

and Mianning Counties, both in

Liangshan Prefecture Liangshan (; Yi: ''Niep Sha'', pronounced ), officially the Liangshan Yi Autonomous Prefecture, is an autonomous prefecture occupying much of the southern extremity of Sichuan province, People's Republic of China; its seat is Xichang. Liangshan ...

. This mountain range is notable for the Jinping Bend, where the

Yalong River The Yalong River ( zh, 雅砻江, Pinyin, p ''Yǎlóngjiāng'', Wade–Giles, w ''Ya-lung Chiang'', Help:IPA/Mandarin, IPA ), or Nyag Chu (Standard Tibetan, Tibetan: , Tibetan pinyin, z ''Nyag Qu''), is a major tributary ...

wraps around the entire Jinping range. The Jinping Mountains, sometimes considered a large mountain massif, are approximately long and only wide.

Geology

The Jinping Mountains are part of a complicated

orogenic Orogeny is a mountain building process. An orogeny is an event that takes place at a convergent boundary, convergent plate margin when plate motion compresses the margin. An ''orogenic belt'' or ''orogen'' develops as the compressed plate crumpl ...

complex from the

Indian subcontinent The Indian subcontinent is a list of the physiographic regions of the world, physiographical region in United Nations geoscheme for Asia#Southern Asia, Southern Asia. It is situated on the Indian Plate, projecting southwards into the Indian O ...

's collision with the

Eurasian Plate The Eurasian Plate is a tectonic plate that includes most of the continent of Eurasia (a landmass consisting of the traditional continents of Europe and Asia), with the notable exceptions of the Indian subcontinent, the Arabian subcontinent and ...

and the resistance of the

Yangtze Plate The Yangtze Plate, also called the South China Block or the South China Subplate, comprises the bulk of southern China. It is separated on the east from the Okinawa Plate by a rift that forms the Okinawa Trough which is a back-arc basin, on the so ...

to the east. The mountains are primarily composed of Triassic

marble Marble is a metamorphic rock composed of recrystallized carbonate minerals, most commonly calcite or Dolomite (mineral), dolomite. Marble is typically not Foliation (geology), foliated (layered), although there are exceptions. In geology, the ...

Geography

The Jinping Mountains are rugged and rise almost above the

on either side. The Jinping are located in the complicated grouping of mountains called the Hengduan Mountains that transition between the

Tibetan Plateau The Tibetan Plateau (, also known as the Qinghai–Tibet Plateau or the Qing–Zang Plateau () or as the Himalayan Plateau in India, is a vast elevated plateau located at the intersection of Central, South and East Asia covering most of the Ti ...

in the northwest to the Yungui Plateau in the southeast. The Jinping are sometimes classified as a southern subrange of the

Shaluli Mountains The Shaluli Mountains (), known in Tibetan as Powor Gang, are a large mountain range in western China between the Upper Yangtze (Jinsha) and Yalong Rivers. It is one of the core ranges of the Hengduan group of mountains. The Shaluli Mountains s ...

, a component range of the Hengduan. The Yalong River separates the Jinping Mountains from the

Daxue Mountains Daxue may refer to: *Daxue (solar term) (大雪), 21st solar term in traditional East Asian calendars *''Da Xue'', or ''Great Learning'' (大學), one of the "Four Books" in Confucianism *Daxue Mountains (大雪山腰), mountain range in western Si ...

to north. The tallest peak of the Jinping Mountains rises to above sea level and has a

topographic prominence In topography, prominence (also referred to as autonomous height, relative height, and shoulder drop in US English, and drop or relative height in British English) measures the height of a mountain or hill's summit relative to the lowest contou ...

of . This peak is also known in

Chinese Chinese can refer to: * Something related to China * Chinese people, people of Chinese nationality, citizenship, and/or ethnicity **''Zhonghua minzu'', the supra-ethnic concept of the Chinese nation ** List of ethnic groups in China, people of va ...

as Jinping Shan (锦屏山) as the word for mountain () can refer to either a mountain or mountain range. After flowing southeasterly, the Yalong River diverts north along the west side of the Jinping before turning 180 degrees and flowing south along the east side of the mountains. This forms the dramatic Jinping Bend, known for its deep gorge and inhospitable terrain.

Human development

The Jinping's vertical relief and the Yalong River's elevation drop from one side to the other make it an optimal source of

hydroelectric energy Hydroelectricity, or hydroelectric power, is electricity generated from hydropower (water power). Hydropower supplies one sixth of the world's electricity, almost 4500 TWh in 2020, which is more than all other renewable sources combined an ...

. The

Jinping-I Dam The Jinping-I Dam () also known as the Jinping-I Hydropower Station or Jinping 1st Cascade, is a tall arch dam on the Jinping Bend of the Yalong River (Yalong Jiang) in Liangshan Yi Autonomous Prefecture, Liangshan, Sichuan, People's Republic of ...

, on the west side of the Jinping Mountains, is the tallest

dam A dam is a barrier that stops or restricts the flow of surface water or underground streams. Reservoirs created by dams not only suppress floods but also provide water for activities such as irrigation, human consumption, industrial use, a ...

in the world at high. The

Jinping-II Dam The Jinping-II Dam (), also known as the Jinping-II Hydropower Station, is a gravity dam on the Jinping Bend of the Yalong River (Yalong Jiang) in Sichuan, China. Construction on the project began in 2007 and it was complete in 2014. Its hydroe ...

, a little further downstream, diverts the water of the Yalong River nearly under the Jinping Mountains to the east side of the bend. More than 13.2 million m³ of earth was excavated for the construction of Jinping-II's power station below the mountains. A total of seven tunnels were bored through the Jinping Mountains at depths up to beneath the mountain peaks. This included four water diversion tunnels, two auxiliary tunnels, and one construction drainage tunnel. The

China Jinping Underground Laboratory The China Jinping Underground Laboratory () is a deep underground laboratory in the Jinping Mountains of Sichuan, China. The cosmic ray rate in the laboratory is under 0.2 muons/m2/day, placing the lab at a depth of 6720 meter water equi ...

was developed along the southernmost Jinping-II tunnel through the Jinping Mountains. This institution specializes in the research of

dark matter Dark matter is a hypothetical form of matter thought to account for approximately 85% of the matter in the universe. Dark matter is called "dark" because it does not appear to interact with the electromagnetic field, which means it does not ab ...

as the location deep below the surface of the earth shields the laboratory from interfering cosmic rays.

References

{{reflist, 30em, refs= {{cite book, last1=Zhang, first1=Chunsheng, last2=Liu, first2=Ning, last3=Chu, first3=Weijiang, editor1-last=Feng, editor1-first=Xia-Ting , title=Rock Mechanics and Engineering Volume 5: Surface and Underground Projects , chapter=Chapter 9: Key problems in the design of diversion tunnel in Jinping II hydropower station , date=2017, publisher=CRC Press, isbn=9781317481874 , access-date= {{cite peakbagger, title=Jinping Shan, China, pid=14183, accessdate=14 September 2017 Mountain ranges of Sichuan Mountain ranges of China