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How Erosion Builds Mountains

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How Erosion Builds Mountains How Erosion Builds Mountains An understanding of how tectonic, erosional and climatic forces interact to shape mountains permits clearer insights into the earth’s history Nicholas Pinter and Mark T. Brandon ountains are far more erosion. In particular, the interactions for earth science. To a geologist, the massive than all human between tectonic, climatic and erosional earth’s plains, canyons and, especially, M structures combined and processes exert strong control over the mountains reveal the outline of the plan- are sculpted in greater detail than a Ba- shape and maximum height of moun- et’s development over hundreds of mil- roque palace. The world’s tallest pinna- tains as well as the amount of time nec- lions of years. In this sprawling history, cle—Mount Everest in the Himalayas— essary to build—or destroy—a mountain mountains indicate where events in or reaches 8,848 meters, or about 15 times range. Paradoxically, the shaping of just below the earth’s crust, such as the higher than anything people have ever mountains seems to depend as much on collisions of the tectonic plates, have built. Not surprisingly, such spectacular the destructive forces of erosion as on thrust this surface layer skyward. Thus, topography has evoked awe and in- the constructive power of tectonics. In mountains are the most visible manifes- spired artists and adventurers through- fact, after 100 years of viewing erosion tation of the powerful tectonic forces at out human existence. as the weak sister of tectonics, many ge- work and the vast time spans over which Recent research has led to important ologists now believe erosion actually those forces have operated. new insights into how this most mag- may be the head of the family. In the The recent model builds on a lengthy nificent of the earth’s relief comes to be. words of one research group, “Savor the history. One of the first comprehensive Mountains are created and shaped, it irony should mountains owe their [mus- models of how mountains evolve over appears, not only by the movements of cles] to the drumbeat of tiny raindrops.” time was the Geographic Cycle, pub- the vast tectonic plates that make up the Because of the importance of moun- lished in 1899. This model proposed a earth’s exterior but also by climate and tain building in the evolution of the hypothetical life cycle for mountain earth, these findings ranges, from a violent birth caused by a have significant brief but powerful spasm of tectonic implications uplift to a gradual slide into “old age” caused by slow but persistent erosion. The beauty and logic of the Geographic Cycle persuaded nearly a century of geologists to overlook its overwhelming limitations. In the 1960s the plate- SPECTACULAR VALLEY in the Ca- nadian Rocky Mountains was carved out by glaciers—a powerful erosive force—during the last ice age. 74 Scientific American April 1997 Copyright 1997 Scientific American, Inc. tectonics revolution explained how lateral convergence between adjacent heat associated with the flow of magma mountain building is driven by the hor- plates or through the upward flow of can also help uplift large areas by mak- izontal movements of vast blocks of the heat and magma (molten rock). ing the crust less dense and more buoy- lithosphere—the relatively cool and brit- ant on the underlying mantle. tle part of the earth’s exterior. Accord- Subduction or Collision The emerging, system-oriented view ing to this broad framework, internal of mountain building adds to those tec- heat energy shapes the planet’s surface onvergence of tectonic plates gen- tonic phenomena the often closely in- by compressing, heating and breaking Cerally occurs in one of two ways. tertwined effects of erosion and climate. the lithosphere, which varies in thickness One plate may slide down, or subduct, Erosion includes the disaggregation of from 100 kilometers or less below the below the other, into the mantle. At a bedrock, the stripping away of sediment oceans to 200 or more below the conti- subduction-zone boundary, the upper from slopes and the transport of the nents. The lithosphere is not a solid shell plate is thickened as a result of the com- sediment by rivers. The mix of erosional but rather is subdivided into dozens of pression and from magma being added agents active on a particular landscape— plates. Driven by heat from below, these by the melting of the descending plate. gravity, water, wind and glacial ice—de- plates move with respect to one another, Many mountains, including almost all pends on the local climate, the steepness accounting for most of our world’s fa- the ranges that surround the Pacific of the topography and the types of rock miliar surface features and phenomena, Ocean in a geologically active area at or near the surface. such as earthquakes, ocean basins and known as the ring of fire, formed by sub- Climate is inextricably linked with mountains. duction. With continental collision, on erosion because it affects the average Earth scientists have not by any means the other hand, neither plate subducts rate of material loss across a landscape. discarded plate tectonics as a force in into the mantle, and therefore all the In general, wetter conditions favor fast- mountain building. Over the past couple mass added as a result of the collision er rates of erosion; however, more mois- of decades, however, they have come to contributes to the building of mountains. ture also promotes the growth of vege- the conclusion that mountains are best Such collisions have created some spec- tation, which helps to “armor” the sur- described not as the result of tectonics tacular topography, such as the Tibetan face. Mountains in polar latitudes are alone but rather as the products of a sys- Plateau and the Himalayas, which in- the least vulnerable to erosion, partly tem that encompasses erosional and cli- clude all 10 of the world’s highest peaks. because of the aridity of cold climates matic processes in addition to tectonic The flow of magma and heat to the and partly because continental ice sheets ones and that has many complex link- earth’s crust, for example, during vol- such as those on Greenland and Antarc- ages and feedbacks among those three canic activity, can also drive mountain tica commonly are frozen to the under- components. building. The earth’s longest mountain lying rock and cause little erosion. In Plate tectonics still provides the basic chains—the mid-ocean ridges—are the contrast, mountain glaciers such as those framework that accounts for the distri- result of magma welling up as adjacent of the European Alps and the Sierra Ne- bution of mountains across the earth’s plates move apart, forming new crust un- vada in California aggressively attack surface. Mountain building is still ex- der the ocean. These ridges run through the subsurface rock, so that this type of mages plained as the addition of mass, heat or the Atlantic, eastern Pacific and Indian glacier may be the earth’s most potent amic I some combination of the two to an area oceans like the seam on a baseball; the erosional agent. anor P of the earth’s crust (the crust is the upper Mid-Atlantic Ridge alone is more than There are many other links among part of the lithosphere). Thicker or hot- 15,000 kilometers long, rising as much erosion, climate and topography. For ter crust rises upward, forming moun- as 4,000 meters above the surrounding example, mountains lift the winds that RICHARD SISK tains, because the crust is essentially abyssal plains of the floating on the mantle under it, and crust ocean floor. On land, that is either thicker or hotter (less dense) floats higher. Plate tectonics contributes to the thickening of the crust by either Copyright 1997 Scientific American, Inc. Scientific American April 1997 75 as well—it is known as nega- offer a useful analogy: because ice is tive feedback. In contrast, about 90 percent as dense as water, a positive feedback has the op- given mass of ice above the water is sup- posite effect, accelerating any ported by nine times that mass under- change in a system. The cre- neath the waterline. Continental crust , INC. ation of a rain shadow is an is about 80 to 85 percent as dense as the example of positive feed- mantle beneath, enabling crustal roots AN SANT back; erosion is inhibited, al- tens of kilometers deep to support moun- OM V lowing a mountain range to tains several kilometers high. OJECT/T continue its rapid growth. Isostasy is the key mechanism that The rain shadow north of links a mountain’s tectonic, or internal, HERE PR the Himalayas has contribut- evolution to its geomorphic, or exter- ed to the formation of the nal, development. When erosion at the THE GEOSP high-standing Tibetan Pla- surface removes mass, isostasy responds HIMALAYAS and Tibetan Plateau are clearly visible teau [see box on pages 78 by lifting the entire mountain range up in this satellite image as a mostly white area north and 79]. to replace about 80 percent of the mass and east of India. The ridges along the southern The concept of feedback is removed. This uplift explains a number boundary of this area are the Himalayas, which are at the heart of the new under- of phenomena that were puzzling be- the stunning manifestation of an ongoing collision standing of how mountains fore researchers fully appreciated the that began 50 million years ago, when the Indian tec- are built—and even how role of feedback in mountain building.
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