Mountain-building

Mountain building usually involves compres-sional deformation of the crust. Studies of the physics of orogeny suggest that there is a feedback between the nature of the building process and denudation rates. Suppe (1981), Davis et al. (1983), and Dahlen et al. (1984) have modeled the effects of brittle deformation in accretionary fold-thrust mountain belts such as Taiwan and the Andes. The basis of their model is the hypothesis that rock deformation is governed... 

Suppe, J. (1981). Mechanics of mountain building in Taiwan. Geol. Soc. China Mem. 67-89. 

Raymo, M.E., Ruddiman, W.F. and Froelich, P.N. (1988) Influence of late Cenozoic mountain building on ocean geochemical cycles. Geology, 16, 649-653. 

The largest evaporate basin formed in recent geological history is the Mediterranean basin. A closed, or almost closed, basin formed when mountain building blocked the Straits of Gibraltar some 6 million years ago. Before the Straits opened again, half a million years later, a layer of 1 kilometer of evaporates had accumulated on the basin floor. 

STABLE ISOTOPE PALEOALTIMETRY AND MOUNTAIN BUILDING PROCESSES... 

Schmid, S. M. (1982). Microfabric studies as indicators of deformation mechanisms and flow laws operative in mountain building. In Mountain Building Processes, edited by K. J. Hsii, pp. 95-110. London Academic Press. 

K. Y. (2001) Late Cenozoic tectonic evolution of the northwestern Tien Shan new age estimates for the initiation of mountain building. Geol. Soc. Am. Bull. 113(12), 1544-1559. 

Regional metamorphism produces the bulk of the Earth s metamorphic rock. The volume of rock affected can be hundreds or even thousands of cubic miles. It is usually associated with mountain building processes. 

Tectonic event—Episode of movement or deformation of the large plates of oceanic and continental crust that cover Earth. Mountain building and regional metamorphism can result from tectonic events. 

North America s little Archean continents slammed together in a series of mountain-building collisions. The core of the modem continent was formed 1,850 million years ago when five of these collisions occurred at once around northeastern Canada. This unified piece of ancient continental crust, called a craton, lies exposed at the surface in the Canadian Shield, and forms a solid foundation under much of the rest of the continent. 

The Taconic mountains rose 480 million years ago, wrinkled under pressure like the hood of a wrecked car, from Maryland to the Gaspe Peninsula of Quebec. The compressed rocks from this mountain-building event are exposed in the Taconic Range of New York, and in eastern Pennsylvania. But by 410 million years ago the peaks that had towered over the east coast had been eroded away, and the sea washed over their exposed roots and covered them with level deposits of limestone. As these mountains wore down, the resulting sediment filled a shallow sea basin running from New York southward to Alabama, in layers up to 1,000 ft (300 m) thick. 

A critical feature of any FCM, especially in the boundary layer and when the flow is influenced by mountains, buildings, surface heating, is the representation of the effects... 

Mud, silt and sandy sediments form mainly by weathering—the breakdown and alteration of solid rock. Usually, these sedimentary particles are transported by rivers to the oceans, where they sink onto the seabed. Here, physical and biological processes and chemical reactions (collectively known as diagenesis) convert sediment into sedimentary rock. Eventually these rocks become land again, usually during mountain building (orogenesis). 

Patacca, E. ScANDONE, P. (1989) Post-Tortonian mountain building in the Apennines. The role of the passive sinking of a relict lithospheric slab. In The Lithosphere in Italy (Ed. Boriani, A. et al.), pp. 157-176. Atti dei... 

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