Geology
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Types of Mountains
Fold Mountains
The most common mountain ranges in the world are Fold Mountains. These mountains are created when more than one of the earth’s tectonic forces collide or are pushed together. At the compressing boundaries created through collision, debris and rocks are forded and warped into mountain ranges. Orogeny is the process that creates fold mountains, and orogenic events usually take more than a million years to form these kinds of mountains. Fold mountains relate to the continental crust because they are created at plate boundaries, which can sometimes be referred to as compression zones or continental collision zones (Bishop & Trendall, 2017). Convergent plate boundaries during fold mountains formation define the collisions’ sites where the crashing of the tectonic plates takes place. Compression zone, where a set of stresses occur at a point in the rock, tectonic activities results in crustal compression at the crust’s edge. Due to the compression, most fold mountains are usually found at the end of the plates. Rocks in the continental interior of fold mountains are often stronger than rocks at the continental crust; hence the latter are always susceptible to warping and folding.
Common examples of fold mountains include the Alps, Andes, and the Himalayas.
Volcanic Mountains
These mountains are formed when magma, a molten rock, erupts and accumulates on the surface of the earth. Magma is referred to as lava after it leaves the earth’s crust. When the lava and ash cools, a cone of rock is built, which subsequently becomes a volcanic mountain. The formation of a volcano is due to a natural composition of tectonic plates on the earth’s crust. The cooling of the erupted lava forms another crust on the earth’s surface. As more eruptions occur with time, a rock builds up from the erupted lava and forms a volcano. Volcanoes can grow in size and become bigger through continuous eruption and formation of new crust. Volcanic eruptions always take place at plate boundaries through either the mode of colliding plates or spreading plates. Spreading plates take place when tectonic plates move apart, resulting in volcanic eruptions that are gently extruded. On the other hand, colliding plates take place when either of the earth’s plates is pushed under the other. The colliding plates force the seawater and the old plate downwards. The colliding plates also form andesitic lava and create violent eruptions comprising ash. Examples of volcanic mountains are Mount Fuji and Mount Vesuvius.
Plateau Mountains
These types of mountains are formed from erosion as opposed to internal activities. Plateaus are formed by geologic forces that raise them and rain that wears them. These mountains are built over thousands of centuries as the earth’s crust collides with each other gurgle and melt backwards into the earth’s surface. The Tibetan Plateau, which is the biggest and highest plateau mountain in the earth, was formed due to the collision of two tectonic plates. The land located at the seam of the collision was uplifted, resulting in the Himalaya mountain range.
Fault-Block Mountains
Block mountains are formed when cracks or faults on earth’s crust thrust some blocks or materials of rock up and force other materials down. The crust fractures opposed to folding over when subjected to the forces. The fractures cause a breakup of the crust into chunks or blocks, and as the blocks move apart, they consequently become stacked on each other. When the cracks in block mountain formation are parallel to one another, the land between them is uplifted, resulting in the formation of block mountains.
The Harz Mountains and the Sierra Nevada Mountains in Germany and North America, respectively, are examples of fault-block mountains.
Dome Mountains
These mountains are formed due to magma (melted rock) erupting from the earth’s crust. The magma’s failure to erupt into the earth’s surface uplifts the overlying rocks, resulting in the formation of dome mountains. At some point in the eruption, the melted rocks cool and result in a hardened rock, a physical feature of the rock. Erosion by rain and wind occurs at the dome because it is elevated than its surrounding hence forming a circular mountain range.
The Black Hills and Adirondack Mountains in New York State and South Dakota respectively are common examples of Dome Mountains.
The Alp Mountain Range
The Alps mountain range comprise of the African Plate, Jurassic Ocean floor, and the European Plate. Located in Central Europe, the Alps is a type of fold mountain that was formed as a result of a collision between the African Plate and the European plate. The collision resulted in the uplifting of the ground and formation of the region’s highest peak. The Alpine orogeny resulted in the Alps mountain range formation and took millions of years before the formation of the mountain range. At the compression of the two mountains, tectonic activity forced crustal compression at the African plate. As a result, the mountain range was formed at the edge of the European plate, which was the edge of the plate’s boundary.
Earthquakes
Volcanic, tectonic, explosion, and volcanic earthquakes are the four types of earthquakes experienced in the earth. The tectonic earthquake takes place when the earth’s crust is broken down through geological forces on the materials and the adjoining plates that result in chemical and physical changes in the earth’s crust. Tectonic earthquakes take place at plate tectonic boundaries due to the constant motion of the earth’s materials. The constant motions among the plates create pressure within the plates. The plates eventually succumb to the increased pressure cause the plates to slide against each other rapidly. The movement and slides result in tectonic earthquakes as the released energy is great enough to cause the movement to be felt on the earth’s surface. Volcanic earthquakes usually take place due to tectonic forces that take place together with volcanic activities. Movement of magma is responsible movements beneath the volcano through the exertion of pressure till the rocks on earth’s crust crack. Consequently, the magma thrust out through the cracks resulting in earthquakes. Each time a crack is created in the earth’s crust, the magma builds internal pressure to come outwards, resulting in earthquakes waves.
A collapse earthquake takes place in mines and underground caverns when seismic waves produce an explosion of rocks on the earth’s surface. A collapse earthquake is as a result of the induced stress in the mines that explosively flies away from the large masses of rocks. Massive landslides can also produce collapse earthquakes. Explosion earthquakes take place as a result of a chemical or nuclear detonation. Underground nuclear explosions that have been taking place since the 20th century have resulted in explosion earthquakes. The underground detonation of nuclear devices often results in to release of a substantial amount of energy.
Wasatch Front
The Wasatch front is a region characterized by tectonic faults along the zone. The fault in the region repeatedly takes place, especially during earthquakes resulting in the formation of valleys in the west and mountains in the east. Humans cannot live in the Wasatch front even in the absence of the faults and the resulting earthquakes. The Wasatch front is still prone to geological activities such as soil erosion that destabilizes the region. The Wasatch Front will remain seismically unstable, resulting in more earthquakes and economic upheavals that cannot sustain humans’ lives. Slopes hazards is also a phenomenon that cannot allow humans to inhabit the Wasatch Front. Slope hazards such as mudflows, debris flows, and landslides occur when rocks and other materials move downwards due to shear stress being higher than the shear strength of the rocks and other materials. The region is prone to stress that acts on soil and masses of rocks, causing instability in the region.
Plate Tectonics and Volcanoes
Volcanic activities are related to convergent and divergent plates, with the latter manifesting itself in ocean basins as long volcanic rifts and the former manifesting itself as an individual volcano. Most volcanoes in the world are usually formed along plate boundaries, which are a region where oceanic plates sink under other tectonic plates. The oceanic plate sinks into the subduction zone resulting from heating in the region and the formation of magma. About 80% of volcanoes have formed in the Pacific Ocean, which is a region where the Eurasian and the African plates are pulled apart, resulting in a tectonic boundary.
Earthquakes frequently occur on the edge of the continental and oceanic plates. The rock underground earth’s crust breaks along the plates, thus releasing a high amount of energy that shakes the ground. The circum-Pacific seismic belt is presently the greatest earthquake belt in the world because it exists at the boundary of the tectonic plate. The plates at the boundary occur at the region where the oceanic crust is sinking under another plate.
The Role of Volcanoes and Earthquakes on Civilization
Despite their negative effects on human lives and the economy, earthquakes and volcanoes are, to an extent, beneficial to the natural. The volcanic process serves as a means of stress release for the high tension that accumulates beneath the earth’s surface (Bally et al., 2016). Volcanoes are helpful in cooling off earth’s heat, thus creating stability in the earth’s crust. Volcanic deposits are useful building materials for the construction of human structures. Erupting materials such as diabase and basalt in northwest states in the US are usually crushed into stones and used in the manufacture of railroad ballast and road metal. Volcanoes bring to humans new islands that are used as islands for leisure purposes. Earthquakes and volcanoes often result in mineral deposits that can be economically harnessed by human beings.
Tectonic forces often result in the creation of beautiful landscapes such as the Himalayas that are used by human beings for aesthetic purposes by human beings. An understanding of the earth’s tectonic forces is essential in estimating the degree of earthquakes and predicting its timing. Such predictions are important in enabling human beings to take prior cautions before earthquakes and thus saving their lives.
References
Bally, A. W., Gordy, P. L., & Stewart, G. A. (2016). Structure, seismic data, and orogenic evolution of southern Canadian Rocky Mountains. Bulletin of Canadian Petroleum Geology, 14(3), 337-381.
Bishop, W. W., & Trendall, A. F. (2017). Erosion-surfaces, tectonics and volcanic activity. Quarterly Journal of the Geological Society, 122(1-4), 385-420.