Stephen Samuelson Week 5

The location I decided to visit this week was the convergent plate margin in India. This location is especially interesting because it is both a continental and an oceanic plate margin. This margin formed after the oceanic plate, carrying the continental plate we know as India, slammed into the eurasian plate. This resulted in the extreme mountain ranges we see today in the Himalayan Mountains. These were formed with strong compressive forces and formed very distinct antclines and synclines.

Some of the oldest rocks found in this region consist of gneisses and schist and you can really see the abundance of these materials in the mountain ranges of northern India. These mountain ranges were formed via very intense folding and faults in the region are reverse. The mountains in this plate margin are very intense, much more intense than other parts of the world. Mountains are giant and tightly packed together and really shows just how much pressure was involved when India slammed into the eurasian plate.