The Geology of the Himalaya is a record of the most dramatic and visible creations of modern plate tectonic forces.
The Himalayas, which stretch over 2400 km are the result of an ongoing orogeny, the result of a collision between two continental tectonic plates.
This immense mountain range was formed by huge tectonic forces and sculpted by unceasing denudation processes of weathering and erosion.
The Himalaya-Tibet region is virtually the water tower of Asia: it supplies freshwater for more than one-fifth of the world population, and it accounts for a quarter of the global sedimentatary budget.
Topographically, the belt has many superlatives: the highest rate of uplift (nearly 1 cm/year at Nanga Parbat), the highest relief (8848 m at Mt.
Everest Chomolangma), the source of some of the greatest rivers and the highest concentration of glaciers outside of the polar regions.
Mesozoic The Mesozoic Era is one of three geologic eras of the Phanerozoic eon. The Mesozoic includes three geologic periods: from oldest to youngest, they ... >
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Geology of the Alps The Alps form a part of a Tertiary orogenic belt of mountain chains along the southern margin of the continents Asia and Europe, called the Alpide ... >
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Pangaea Pangaea or Pangea is the name given to the supercontinent that existed during the Paleozoic and Mesozoic eras, before the process of plate tectonics ... >
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Cretaceous The Cretaceous period is one of the major divisions of the geologic timescale, reaching from the end of the Jurassic period, about 146 million years ... >
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Continental crust The continental crust is the layer of granitic, sedimentary and metamorphic rocks which form the continents and the areas of shallow seabed close to ... >
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Mid-ocean ridge A mid-ocean ridge or mid-oceanic ridge is an underwater mountain range, formed by plate tectonics. This uplifting of the ocean floor occurs when ... >
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Mountain building Orogeny is the process of mountain building, and may be studied as a tectonic structural event, as a geographical event and a chronological event, in ... >
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Jurassic The Jurassic period is a major unit of the geologic timescale that extends from about 200 Ma (million years ago) at the end of the Triassic to 146 Ma ... >
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Oceanic trench The oceanic trenches are hemispheric-scale long but narrow topographic depressions of the sea floor. They also are the deepest parts of the ocean ... >
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Cenozoic The Cenozoic Era is the most recent of the four classic geological eras. The Cenozoic is divided into two periods, the Palaeogene and Neogene, and ... >
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