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The Origins of Mountains approaches mountains from facts about mountain landscapes rather than theory. The book illustrates that almost everywhere, mountains arose by vertical uplift of a former plain, and by a mixture of cracking and warping by earth movements, and erosion by rivers and glaciers, the present mountainous landscapes were created. It also gives evidence that this uplift only occured in the last few million years, a time scale which does not fit the plate tectonics theory.
Another fascinating part of the evidence, shows that mountain uplift correlates very well with climatic change. Mountain building could have been responsible for the onset of the ice age. It certainly resulted in the creation of new environments. Fossil plants and animals are used in places to work out the time of mountain uplift, which in turn helps to explain biogeographical distributions.
| List of figures | p. viii |
| List of tables | p. xv |
| Preface | p. xvi |
| Acknowledgements | p. xviii |
| Introduction | p. 1 |
| Simple plateaus and erosional mountains | p. 21 |
| Fault block mountains | p. 41 |
| European mountains | p. 60 |
| Western North America | p. 96 |
| The Andes | p. 112 |
| Asian mountains | p. 128 |
| Mountains with gravity structures | p. 150 |
| Volcanoes and granite mountains | p. 168 |
| Mountains on passive margins | p. 193 |
| Plains and planation surfaces, drainage and climate | p. 227 |
| Problems of mountain tectonics | p. 271 |
| Science and the origin of mountains | p. 311 |
| References | p. 316 |
| Index | p. 336 |
| Table of Contents provided by Syndetics. All Rights Reserved. |
ISBN: 9780415198905
ISBN-10: 0415198909
Number Of Pages: 368
Publisher: Routledge
Format:
Paperback
Language:
English
Dimensions (cm): 23.4 x 15.6
x 2.0
Weight (kg): 0.5
Audience:
Tertiary; University or College
