Saturday, March 22, 2008

Himalayan Mountain Creation

The himalayan mountain range was created by forces. S0 what forces created the Himaylayas? The theory of the Himalayan mountains started to take place in 1912. The theory was called the Continental Drift.
The Earth was composed of several giant plates, called the Tectonic Plates. On the plates are the continents and the oceans of Earth. The continents were said to have been one big, single, continent called Pangea. Since then, the single continent drifted apart from eachother. About 200 million years ago a sea stretched along the latitudinal area, which today is occupied by the Himalayans. The sea was called The Tethys. The Northern Eurasian land mass and the Southern Indian land mass started depositing large amounts of sediments. The sediments started pouring into the shallow part of the Tethys. The two land masses began colliding with eachother. This phase kept happening over and over. The last major phase happened about 600,000 years ago. These series of phases is what led to the formation of the Himalayas.
Overall, the forces of the Himalayan mountain range was the collision. Also, the deposits from the land masses that filled the sea.
The collison of India and Asia, happened along the convergent boundary.
Today there is still movement in the tectonic plates, due to earthquakes. The Himalayas still rise about 5mm per year. The Himalayas are young, folded mountains.
In conclusion, the theory of the Himalayas in 1912 is the accepted theory, called the Continenal Drift. 200 million years ago is when the two large land masses collided and started forming. Today this is still the accepted theory about the Himalayan mountain range. The Himalayan mountains took a very long time to form. But the forces and time it took to form the mountains, gave us huge and beautiful mountains today.

(KG3)

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