I recently visited the awe-inspiring Himalayan Mountains. These mountains serve as an example of what can happen when continental crust converges with other continental crust. This mountain range, which is believed to have formed 50-30 million years ago was created as the Indian-Australian plate collided with and subsequently subducted beneath the Eurasian plate.
When the two plates collided, compressional stress was applied to the rocks at the boundary. A combination of temperature, pressure, and the composition of the rocks affected resulted in ductile and brittle deformation of material on the continental margins. This material became highly folded and developed thrust faults. Subsequent movement along these fault lines resulted in layers of the Indian-Australian crust to be stacked upon one another, resulting in some of the highest peaks of the Himalayan Mountains. The majority of this material was sedimentary rocks on the Indian crust that was subjected to deformation after the collision of the two plates.
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References
Lutgens, F. & Tarbuck, E. (2018). Essentials of geology (13th ed.). Hoboken, NJ: Pearson Education.
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