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PROMINENCE THEORY

10/13/2004
I have uploaded an unpublished essay entitled Prominence and Orometrics that I wrote in 2003.  This should serve as an introduction to the concepts and usefulness of important concepts such as prominence, key saddles, divide trees, mountain lineage and parents, and domains.  Please send feedback to the author.

Click Here to Begin:  Prominence and Orometrics

Table of Contents:

1.    An Introduction to Prominence
1.1      Definition of Prominence
1.2      Prominence is Relative Elevation
1.3      Prominence as a Qualifying Rule
1.4      The Prominence Theorists
1.5      Reordering of Mountains Based on Prominence

2.    Every Summit has a Saddle
3.    The Theory of Surface Networks
3.1      Surface Elements
3.2      The Surface Network
3.3      Maxwell's Hills and Dales
3.4      Ridge and Channel Networks
3.5      Key Saddles and Basin Saddles

4.    An Exploration of the Divide Tree
4.1       Does the Divide Tree have a Root?
4.2       Automatic Extraction of Prominence
4.3       Highly Connected Peaks
5.   Distribution and Probability of Prominence
5.1       Persistence of Prominence in the United States
5.2       Prominence Density
5.3       Distribution of datasets
5.4       Prominence and Elevation
5.5       Dominance
6.   Lineage Theory
6.1       Meet the Parents
Line Parents (NHN)
Prominence Parents (PP)
Island Parents (IP)
6.2       The Lineage
6.3       The Lineage Key
6.4       Notes on the San Francisco Lineage
7.      Do Mountains Have a Natural Domain?
7.1       Lineage Cells -- a non-hierarchical vision of hills
7.2       Lineage Area -- the superset
7.3       PALA -- the natural Domain of the summit
7.4       Lineage Groups
8.   Lineage Groups and Mountain Hierarchies
8.1       Three types of parent and three types of Set Theory.
8.2       The Group Mentality
8.3       First Order Groupings - disecting the continent
8.4       Second Order Groupings - approximating the Ultras
8.5       Third Order Groupings - The P2000 lineage cells
9.   Isolation



Citation:  Prominence and Orometrics:  A Study of the Measurement of Mountains.  Aaron Maizlish ©2003.

Other Files Available:

           •       Download a Powerpoint Presentation of Prominence and Orometrics presented at NACIS 
                   (North American Cartographic Information Society, Oct. 10, 2003
                   File is 6.4 MB



Coming Soon to the Theory Page?

•    A Quick Overview of Mountain Prominence, Surface Elements, Lineage and Domains (summary of above article)

•    Analysis of the Distribution of Mountains Worldwide.

•    Article on some likely unclimbed Ultra-Prominences Worldwide

•    Glossary of Terms

•    Introduction to Winprom - automated extraction of prominence and divide trees


Meanwhile
...

Read all about prominence here on the COHP.org website.

If you read German, also check out Eberhard Jurgalski's site.

And if you have something to contribute, join the open discussion forum:  Yahoo Group dedicated to prominence.

Feel free to contribute an article to this page.