Montevallo, Alabama

Montevallo is a city in Shelby County, Alabama, United States. A college town, it is the home of the University of Montevallo, a public liberal arts university with around 3,000 students. As of the 2000 census, the population of the city of Montevallo is 4,825. Hollie Campbell Cost, a professor in the College of Education at the University of Montevallo, serves as Mayor.

Geography

Montevallo is located at 33°6′18″N 86°51′46″W / 33.10500°N 86.86278°W / 33.10500; -86.86278 (33.104927, -86.862817). A plaque on Reynolds Cemetery Road, just off highway 25, in the eastern corner of the town, marks the geographic center of the state of Alabama. Middle Street, formerly known as Main Street, had its name changed in 1899 for this reason, upon the completion of a new state survey.

According to the U.S. Census Bureau, the city has a total area of 7.7 square miles (20 km²), of which, 7.6 square miles (20 km²) of it is land and 0.1 square miles (0.26 km²) of it (0.66%) is water.

History

Montevallo (crater)

Montevallo Crater is a crater in the Lunae Palus quadrangle of Mars, located at 15.4° N and 54.4° W. It is 51.9 km in diameter and was named after the town Montevallo, Alabama, USA. Impact craters generally have a rim with ejecta around them, in contrast volcanic craters usually do not have a rim or ejecta deposits. As craters get larger (greater than 10 km in diameter) they usually have a central peak. The peak is caused by a rebound of the crater floor following the impact.

Montevallo Crater, as seen by CTX camera (on Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter).

Montevallo Crater, as seen by CTX camera (on Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter).

Why are Craters important?

The density of impact craters is used to determine the surface ages of Mars and other solar system bodies. The older the surface, the more craters present. Crater shapes can reveal the presence of ground ice.

The area around craters may be rich in minerals. On Mars, heat from the impact melts ice in the ground. Water from the melting ice dissolves minerals, and then deposits them in cracks or faults that were produced with the impact. This process, called hydrothermal alteration, is a major way in which ore deposits are produced. The area around Martian craters may be rich in useful ores for the future colonization of Mars.

Montevallo (album)

Montevallo is the debut studio album by American singer and songwriter Sam Hunt. It was released on October 27, 2014, via MCA Nashville. Hunt co-wrote all ten tracks on the album. The album was produced by Zach Crowell and Shane McAnally. "Cop Car" was previously recorded by Keith Urban on his eighth studio album Fuse, who released it as a single in January 2014.

In 2015, Montevallo was nominated for Best Country Album at the 58th Annual Grammy Awards.

Critical reception

Upon release, Montevallo received positive reviews from contemporary music critics, and was heavily drawn attention to Hunt's incorporation of hip hop, R&B, and pop music elements into the project. Elias Leight from Billboard provided a favorable review, describing "eighty percent of this album could compete easily in the top 40", and stated the album "comes from a guy with a hit on the country charts, but has little to identify it as country." Stephen Thomas Erlewine of Allmusic rated the album 3.5 out of 5, saying that "Hunt is unabashedly a modern guy and his taste for busy electronic arrangements and facility with fleet-footed rhythms distinguish him from the pack of modern country bros...What grounds the album is his clean, commercial songwriting, heavy on hooks but also sturdily constructed. Ultimately, Hunt's ability to fuse his classical construction with modern flair and pass it off as no big thing is what makes his debut something more than just another album from the bro next door."