RAINBOW MOUNTAIN INFORMATION

About 100 kilometers southeast of Cusco, Peru, there is a rainbow mountain.

It is the mountain of the Seven Colors, also known as Vinicunca or Rainbow.
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The mountain is located in the Vilcanota Range at 5,200 meters above sea level, in the Pitumarca district.
Its slopes and summits are dyed by stripes of intense shades of fuchsia, turquoise, lavender and gold.
The visual show offered by Vinicunca has attracted visitors since the beginning of 2016, according to Haydee Pacheco, a tourism official at the Municipality of Pitumarca.
In just over two years, travelers who take pictures with the summit went from a few tens to about 1,000 a day, say Peruvian media, despite the cold and altitude of the place.
Thanks to its popularity, also driven by social networks, the hill became a common destination in the rankings of tourist attractions in the world.
For example, in August 2017, it appeared on the list of 100 places to visit before dying recommended by travel experts on the Business Insider website.
The tourist boom is quite recent, but the history of the mountain and its colors began millions of years ago.
Minerals
The rainbow aspect of Vinicunca is due to "a complex geological history of marine, lake and river sediments," according to a report by the Office of Cultural Landscape of the Decentralized Directorate of Culture of Cusco.
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These sediments, transported by the water that previously covered the area, date between the tertiary and quaternary periods, that is, from about 65 to two million years ago.
Over time, the sediments were forming layers (with different grain sizes) that today look like the stripes that attract tourists so much.
The movement of tectonic plates in the area raised these sediments until they became mountains.
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Then they acquired their striking colors because of the oxidation of their minerals, exerted by the humidity of the area, and their erosion, explains César Muñoz, a member of the Geological Society of Peru (SGP),
Muñoz and the study of the Office of Cultural Landscape detail the composition of each strip according to its color.
Pink or fuchsia: mixture of red clay, fangolites (mud) and sand.
Off-white: sandstone (quartz sand) and limestone.
Purple or lavender: marl (mixture of clay and calcium carbonate) and silicates.
Red: argillites and clays.
Green: clays rich in magnesium ferro (mixture of iron and magnesium) and copper oxide.
Yellowish, mustard or golden brown: limonites, calcareous sandstones rich in sulphide minerals (combined with sulfur).

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