Monday, May 13, 2013

Third Location: Mt. Everest

Its Jerry Wu again!

Mt. Everest is as cold as it is tall. I can't believe how some people live out here! Some people even manage to climb to the top. How is that even possible? Maybe I will be able to do that someday... Anyways, what I am really curious about is how this is a tectonic boundary. Mt. Everest (27°59'15.72"N 86°55'30.98"E) is located in the middle of Asia and is part of the Himalayan Mountains. It is also the tallest mountain in the world and probably the most well known. But the question still is how does it relate to a tectonic boundary?

Mt. Everest
http://claudiadchristian.com/blog/2010/12/whats-your-mt-everest/

As it turns out, this type of boundary is quite the opposite of the divergent boundary I am looking for. The Himalayan Mountain range is an example of a convergent collision boundary. A collision boundary differs from a subduction boundary because neither of the two plates goes under the other in a collision boundary. As I said before in my previous post, a subduction boundary is when two plates smash together and one of them sinks into the mantle and under the other plate. In a collision boundary, the plates just press together and "fold" upward, forming large mountains that includes the Himalayas. The Himalayas formed when the Indian subcontinent smashed into Asia about 50 million years ago and created a convergent collision boundary. When the two land masses crashed into each other, the land bent upward and formed the tallest mountains in the world. 

When plates collide...
http://www.divediscover.whoi.edu/tectonics/tectonics-collide.html

Well, theres absolutely no hope of finding Jimmy here since Mt. Everest is the opposite of what he is looking for. I really need to think about where I am going next before I leave the Himalayas. I'm running out of travel money! I heard of a divergent boundary close to Antartica, but I never thought about going there. This is a desperate situation however, and dire problems require dire solutions.

So Antartica, here I come!

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