Everyone has heard about and seen photos of the beautiful and dangerous Himalayan mountains. I decided to take a closer look during my field trip today.
I learned that the Himalayan mountain range began forming about 50 million years ago as the Indian continental plate slowly collided with the Asian continental plate. Both of these continental crusts were made up of granite and could not subduct under one another, so the trust through compression forced the granite crust to push upwards, creating layer upon layer of rock, thus forming this impressive mountain range.
However, before the continental plates collided, sediment was being pushed up from the subduction of the oceanic plate, which occurred by oceanic-continental plate convergent (destructive) plate margin. Therefore, this incredible mountain range is made up of both sedimentary and igneous metamorphic rock.
The way these two continental plates smashed into each other slowly to form this dramatic mountain range can be clearly seen on Google Earth.
Earth.Part #20 - Continental collisions & mountain-building by orogeny. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9smM0VjTJBg
The Geological Society. Continental/Continental: The Himalayas. Retrieved from
https://www.geolsoc.org.uk/Plate-Tectonics/Chap3-Plate-Margins/Convergent/Continental-Collision
Metageologist. The Himalayas: mountains made from mountains. Retrieved from https://all-geo.org/metageologist/2014/04/himalaya-mountains-from-mountains/
Google Earth. Retrieved from https://earth.google.com/web/@28.98740574,83.57568985,4326.73517731a,4714231.89533293d,35y,0h,0t,0r
I learned that the Himalayan mountain range began forming about 50 million years ago as the Indian continental plate slowly collided with the Asian continental plate. Both of these continental crusts were made up of granite and could not subduct under one another, so the trust through compression forced the granite crust to push upwards, creating layer upon layer of rock, thus forming this impressive mountain range.
However, before the continental plates collided, sediment was being pushed up from the subduction of the oceanic plate, which occurred by oceanic-continental plate convergent (destructive) plate margin. Therefore, this incredible mountain range is made up of both sedimentary and igneous metamorphic rock.
The way these two continental plates smashed into each other slowly to form this dramatic mountain range can be clearly seen on Google Earth.
Earth.Part #20 - Continental collisions & mountain-building by orogeny. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9smM0VjTJBg
The Geological Society. Continental/Continental: The Himalayas. Retrieved from
https://www.geolsoc.org.uk/Plate-Tectonics/Chap3-Plate-Margins/Convergent/Continental-Collision
Metageologist. The Himalayas: mountains made from mountains. Retrieved from https://all-geo.org/metageologist/2014/04/himalaya-mountains-from-mountains/
Google Earth. Retrieved from https://earth.google.com/web/@28.98740574,83.57568985,4326.73517731a,4714231.89533293d,35y,0h,0t,0r
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