Answer Framing in 250 words

DIRECTION 30 Mark

Que. 1 In accordance to Plate Tectonic Theory, explain origin and growth of

Write only World Mountains.
Question or
numbers on
this margin Explain how Plate Tectonic Theory explains Orogenesis.
or
Critically evaluate Plate Tectonic Theory in explaining the formation of
mountains of world.
or
Discuss the endogenic forces in specific reference to Orogenesis. Also
discuss how plate tectonic theory explains the process.

Ans. 1 Mountains are large terrain features that rise more or less abruptly from sur-
rounding levels. The earth’s major mountain belts chains thousands of kilo-
meters long occur mainly along the plate margins. As late as 1950s before
the concept of drifting continents was widely accepted, understanding moun-
DO NOT write
tain belts was very incomplete. Theanything
prevailing
in thisview that the evolution of
margin.
mountains began with the development of long relatively narrow troughs
called geosynclines in which thick accumulation
Examiner will of sediments were depos-
give marks here
ited. Over millions of years, these sedimentary piles and rocks beneath them
were deformed metamorphosed and intruded by igneous rocks. These pro-
cesses then resulted in uplift and the generation of mountain belt. Among the
fundamental problems identified with the model was lack of explanation of
origin of troughs (Geosynclines) the source of sediment and mechanism
responsible for the uplift.
By late 1960s the principles of continental drift, sea floor spreading
and plate tectonics had provided a new conceptual framework for under-
standing the origin of mountains. Both on continental crust and oceanic crust,
mountains are formed at the active plate margins. In accordance to it, the
continental crustal mountains are fold and convergent site and block at the
divergent and transform fault sites.
The oceanic crust mountains (ridges) however are quite typical to
divergent type of boundary. Generally thus the categories of mountains

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produced includes –
(a) Mountains produced by subduction.
(b) Mountains produced by collision
(c) Mountains produced along transverse fault
(d) Mountains produced along divergence.
Where two plates converge, the denser plate is subducted beneath the lighter
plate. As the denser plate sinks, it is both heated and deprived of its gases
stimulating the generation of magma either at the subduction zone or within
the overlying mantle wedge. The mountains resulting have many different
expressions depending on the nature of the upper plate and that of subduct-
ing slab.
Examples of subduction related mountain building occurs along the borders
of the Pacific Oceans. The nature of this mountain building varies in style
from one part of the pacific margin to another. In the western Pacific, there
are several examples of ocean-ocean convergence whereas in the eastern
Pacific, it is ocean-continent convergence.

Diagram : Oceanic - Continental

When two oceanic plates converge, the older plate will be preferentially sub-
ducted because older oceanic crust is denser as Marianas type. When the
subduction takes place, generation of volcanic island arc is resulted. When
the subducting slab reaches a depth of about 100 km its gaseous components
are driven off, instigating melting in the mantle wedge above the subduction
zone. Because there is no continental crust with which the ascending mag-

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mas can interact, the magmas that produce the island arc are largely mantle
derived and thus as basaltic in composition. At the subduction site elevated por-
tions of the ocean floor are scrapped off the subducted slab and mix with sedi-
ment derived from the erosion of island arc. This is accretionary wedge. The
ocean continent convergence has excellent example of Nazca Plate subducting
beneath the South American plate. The end result of the process is the generation
of volcanically active Andes Mountain. In contrast ocean-ocean convergence
however the basaltic magma ascending from the subduction zone and the mantle
above interacts with the thick continental crust as it ascends to the surface. The
heat associated with the rising basaltic magma is sufficient to promote melting
near the base of the continental crust magma derived from continental crust is
more silica rich than that derived from the mantle. As a result Andean type sub-
duction zones generate a much wider range of magma composition.
Mountains produced by collision also occur at convergent margins.
Collision may occur between a continental margin and small crustal fragments
known as terranes or between two continents. As the oceans are dotted with
islands and the floors of oceans carry features as mid oceanic ridge, oceanic
plateaux like those of southern pacific, smaller collision usually precede the big-
ger one. The process leads to accretion terrane. The western margin of North
America has been built by a succession of such collisions. Most of the Rocky
Mountains also comprise far traveled terranes that have been accreted to North
America during past 200 million years.

The continent-continent collision is the most dramatic plate collision be-

cause continental lithosphere is too buoyant to be subducted completely. Thus as

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one continent overrides the other, the ensuing collision and crustal thickening, forces
the crust to build enormous mountain zone.
The presence of over thickened continental crust stops the creation and ascent of
magma to the surface. The best example of it is Himalayan ranges. Approximately
60 million years ago after the break up of Pangea had split India from Africa’s
eastern flank. India drifted northward. A similar process also generated the Euro-
pean Alps where the northward migration of the African Plate has rammed into
Europe. The mountain produced along transform faults are the complex pattern of
faults. When transform faults bend, the rocks on either side are either extended or
compressed depending on the direction of the bend and the direction of movement
of the fault. At divergent bends in a transform fault, the crust may be stretched until
it breaks to create pull apart basin as Dark Sea and Salton Sea along with the
Block Mountains.
The mountains at divergent margins are also block type as the Mitumba and
Muchinga mountains along Great Rift Valley. As the divergence is prominent
along oceanic crust it is mainly correlated to oceanic ridges development.
Where the hotspots occur long spreading ridges, vigorous plumes of ascend-
ing hot material may provide sufficient buoyancy that the mid ridge becomes
elevated above sea level. Iceland on Mid-Atlantic ridge and Easter Islands on
the Each Pacific rise are examples.

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