Wednesday, March 6, 2013

Why Mountains are there?

Why Mountains are there?
Planet Earh is like an egg, filled with hot molten lava.
Earth's solid crust is 10 to 50 kilometers thick, that covers the inner side like an egg shell.
Earth's crust is not a single piece and its large floating continet sized pieces are called Tectonic plates.
Tectonic plates grow out like finger nails, mostly underneath the oceans, and drift apart few inches per year.
These Tectonic plates move steadily due to thrust of molten lava beneath them, and interact with each other in different ways.
they can collide, grind or subdue each other, causing earthquakes and wrinkles on the crust.
These "wrinkles" are quiet big in size and become mountains.



Most interesting type of this interaction happened between Indian plate and Eurasian plate. Instead of smoothly sliding past, they got locked against each other. While Indian plate keeps on pushing, it has raised the Tibet several miles high above its original level, causing the highest plateau and mountains on the earth. This unique situation supports more than half of the human population on our planet.

 

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