Week 5, travel journal, The Himalayan Mountains
The convergent- plate margin I decided to visit was the Himalayan Mountains, this mountain- building is the geological formation resulting of a continent crust against continent crust collision. This event could have been taken place close to 45 millions years ago when India began to collide against Asia.
The subduction zone that initiated this continental motion to northern India was located near the southern edge of Asia. Continued subduction along the edge of Asia created an Andean type plate edge that contained a well- developed volcanic arc and an accretion prism. The northern Indian rim on the other hand was a passive the continental rim composed of a thick platform of shallow water sedimentary rocks.
Thus, the Eurasian plate was partly crumpled and buckled up above the Indian plate but due to their low density neither continental plate could be subducted. this caused the continental crust to thicken due to folding and faulting by compressional forces pushing up the Himalayan and the Tibetan plateau.
The tectonic forces involved in Indian collision with Asia were enormous and caused the most deformable materials located on the littoral edges of these continent to experience large folds and faults. Reverse faults also called thrust faults, slide one block of crust on top of another. These faults are commonly found in collisions zones, where tectonic plates push up mountain ranges such as the Himalayan and the Rocky Mountains.
All these faults are related to the earths tectonic plates and the shortening and thickening of the crust lifted large amounts of crust material generating the spectacular Himalayan Mountains
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