highest peaks on earth?

how were the highest peaks of the earth formed?,

also describe how the different type of rock was formed because different peaks are made from different rock types,


peace.

 

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I beleive most were created by the oceans which at one time surrounded them. Also by the travel of the glaciers when they were melting. Plate techtonics also explains the ranges that were created from volcanoes as the plates seperated and/or came together. You'd have to be a bit more specific on which peaks and which types of rocks you are refering to.

 

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There are several types, congomerate...etc and each would have a different explaination for its coming into existance

 

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The two highest above the surface, Everest and it's neighbor K-9, are both the results of plate tectonics and the resultant folding of the Earth's crust.

 

Is Everest a single, double fold or more mountain building process? Science needs to know.

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Geology is way outside my chosen fields and I'm limited to just the basics. So I'll leave that to one of our resident experts.

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If you measure a mountain from its base to its height, irrespective if there was water around it or not, then the Mauna Lau volcano in Hawaiia is the highest and most massive mountain in the world at 32,800 ft.

If you measure a mountain from the ground level up, then it is Mount Everest is 29,035.

Both of these mountains were formed by volcanoes. Mauna Lau is a shield volcano formed when lava pours out in all directions forming a flatter cone. The Hawaiin island Volcanoes are shield valcanoes that originated from underwater cracks (hot spots) in the earth's Pacific plate creating outburst of lava that formed the cones. These lava flows created some of the largest volcanoes in the world.

Many of the postings here most probably will be duplicates of those that were already posted on the forums "Types of Mountains" and "Is the top of a volcano open or closed?" which you can find on page 2. You might want to look them over first.

"Mount Everest, like the rest of the Himalayas, rose from the floor of the ancient Tethys Sea. The range was created when the Eurasian continental plate collided with the Indian subcontinental plate about 30 to 50 million years ago. Eventually the marine limestone was forced upward to become the characteristic yellow band on the top of Mount Everest."
http://encarta.msn.com/encyclopedia_761571675/Mount_Everest.html

"Over two hundred fifty million years ago, India, Africa, Australia, and South America were all one continent called Pangea. Over the next several million years, this giant southern continent proceeded to break up, forming the continents we know today. Pangea essentially turned inside out, the edges of the old continent becoming the collision zones of new continents. Africa, South America, and Antarctica began to fragment.

What ultimately formed Mt. Everest, about 60 million years ago, was the rapid movement of India northward toward the continent of EuroAsia; Click here for a present-day map of the Indian subcontinent. India charged across the equator at rates of up to 15 cm/year, in the process closing an ocean named Tethys that had separated fragments of Pangea. This ocean is entirely gone today, although the sedimentary rocks that settled on its ocean floor and the volcanoes that fringed its edges remain to tell the tale of its existence.

To understand the fascinating mechanics of the collision of India with Asia we must first look beneath the Earth's surface. The continents are carried by the Earth's tectonic plates like people on an escalator. There are currently 7 giant plates sliding across the Earth's surface, and a handful of smaller ones. There may have been more or fewer plates in the past. Currently they slide, collide, and recede from one another at rates of 1-20 cm/year. They are driven by internal heat deep in the earth that is able to escape efficiently only by convection. Convection is the process that drives hot currents of gas or liquid upwards because they are less dense, and cold currents of liquid downwards because they are more dense.

For at least 80 million years the oceanic Indian Plate continued its inexorable collision with southern Asia, including Tibet. The heavy ocean floor north of India acted like a giant anchor, plunging rapidly into the mantle, and dragging the Indian continent along with it, northward, towards Tibet. As the plates collided, the sinking ocean floor generated volcanoes in southern Tibet because the rock at the top of the descending plate melted, from friction and the huge pressures of collision. However, by 25 million years ago the fast moving Indian continent had almost entirely closed over the intervening ocean, squeezing the sediments on the ocean foor. Since the sediments were lightweight, instead of sinking along with the plate, they crumpled into mountain ranges—the Himalayas. By 10 million years ago the two continents were in direct collision and the Indian continent, because of its enormous quantity of light quartz-rich rocks, was unable to descend along with the rest of the Indian plate. It was at about this time that the anchor chain must have broken; the descending Indian plate may have fallen off and foundered deep into the mantle.

Although we don't fully understand the mechanism of what happened next, it's clear that the Indian continent began to be driven horizontally beneath Tibet like a giant wedge, forcing Tibet upwards. Tibet, meanwhile, is behaving like a giant roadblock that prevents the Himalaya from moving northward. Under the peaks and under most of Tibet the Indian plate is apparently gliding along almost frictionlessly.

Over periods of 5-10 million years, the plates will continue to move at the same rate, which allows us to forecast fairly reliably how the Himalaya will develop. In 10 million years India will plow into Tibet a further 180km. This is about the width of Nepal. Because Nepal's boundaries are marks on the Himalayan peaks and on the plains of India whose convergence we are measuring, Nepal will technically cease to exist. But the mountain range we know as the Himalaya will not go away"
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/everest/earth/birth.html

 

Because there are so many different types of rock on Earth - excluding the basic three classifications: igneous, metamorphic, and sedimentary - a really thorough and complete answer to this question would require you to take many courses in geology.

The process of mountain building is called "orogeny" and is usually produced by tectonic plates movements: convergence, divergence or transformational shear (strike-slip, where plates slide across one another left or right horizontally), but can also be produced by individual volcanos or volcanic chains (like the Hawaiian Islands), or magma hot spots that produce uplifts.

"The peak that is farthest from the centre of the Earth is Chimborazo in Ecuador. At 6,272 m above sea level it is not even the tallest peak in the Andes, but because the Earth bulges at the equator and Chimborazo is very close to the equator, it is 2,150 m further away from the Earth's centre than Everest."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mountains#Heights

The World's 10 Highest Mountain Peaks:
Everest1 Himalayas Nepal/Tibet 29,035 8,850
K2 (Godwin Austen) Karakoram Pakistan/China 28,250 8,611
Kanchenjunga Himalayas India/Nepal 28,169 8,586
Lhotse I Himalayas Nepal/Tibet 27,940 8,516
Makalu I Himalayas Nepal/Tibet 27,766 8,463
Cho Oyu Himalayas Nepal/Tibet 26,906 8,201
Dhaulagiri Himalayas Nepal 26,795 8,167
Manaslu I Himalayas Nepal 26,781 8,163
Nanga Parbat Himalayas Pakistan 26,660 8,125
Annapurna Himalayas Nepal 26,545 8,091

The famous "Seven Summits" (the highest mountains on all 7 continents) for summiteers to climb:
Kilimanjaro
Denali
Elbrus
Aconcagua
Carstensz Pyramid
Vinson
Everest

A more complete list of 70 of the World's Highest Mountains"
see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_highest_mountains

The Ten Longest Mountain Ranges [on land]:
Andes: 4,500 miles
Rocky Mountains: 3,000 miles
Himalayas: 2,400 miles
Great Dividing Range: 2,250 miles
Transantarctic Mountains: 2,200 miles
Brazilian Coastal Range: 1,900 miles
Sumatra-Java Range: 1,800 miles
Aleutian Range: 1,650 miles
Tien Shan: 1,400 miles
New Guinea Range: 1,250 miles
http://www.santacruzpl.org/readyref.../lngstmtn.shtml

However, technically, the Mid-Ocean Ridge is Earth's longest mountain range on Earth. "The ridge circles the globe from the Arctic Ocean to the Atlantic Ocean passing into the Indian Ocean and crossing into the Pacific Ocean. This range is four times longer than the Andes, Rocky and Himalaya Mountains combined."
http://pao.cnmoc.navy.mil/educate/n...rivia/large.htm

 

Shit. You are still at it. You take an otherewise good post then ruin it with this piece of tripe. Despite the fact that in your subsequent description you make it very clear that Everest was not formed by volcanoes, you clearly state here it was. When are you going to get your act to together kid?

 

You're stalking me again.

 

Get real you idiot. I am a geologist. I look at posts in Earth science. When I do I find you up to your old nonsense, so I post a correction.
I see you are not about to acknowledge that you made a major error in your post. That's quite normal for you. What plethora of links of unrelated facts may I now expect you to post in an effort to deflect attention away from the fact that you screwed up? I can hardly wait.
Shape up kid or I shall start stalking you for real, not by accident.

Edit: be advised I have reported you for false accusation of stalking and for failure to acknowledge a gross factual error in your post.

 

The Himalayan range was formed when the Indian plate and Eurasian plate collided and there are remnants of volcanic activity and volcano mountains all across the Himilayas; however, the peaks of Mount Everest were probably formed by glacier activities. The mountain is still surrounded by glaciers today.

The finding of ocean-life fossils on top of Mount Everest indicate that it was not directly formed by a volcano, but rest assured that the underlying "main central thrust system" surrounding the Himalaya Mountain range was caused by an uplifting of magma. The surrounding peaks contain many rocks of volcanic origin, especially in the Tibetian region:

"Rift-related basalts are widespread in the Tibetan sedimentary sequence of Zanskar and Kashmir, India and rare Permian alkali granites have been found to intrude the section. Increasing continental-margin instability in Aptian–Albian time is indicated by the formation of regionally important unconformities and the inception of alkalic volcanism. These events, probably marking the separation of the Indian plate from Gondwana and the beginning of its northward drift toward Eurasia....Marine conditions persisted on the part of the Indian margin exposed in the Zanskar Range until early Eocene (Ypresian) time, when red beds containing ophiolitic debris first appeared in the stratigraphic succession....the meta-igneous rocks and associated leucogranites is referred to here as the Greater Himalayan zone.

Most zircons, many monazites, and at least some xenotimes are inherited from the magmatic source regions of the leucogranites or incorporated during emplacement....These same minerals may lose radiogenic Pb by high-temperature diffusion and could thus underestimate magmatic ages....

Cross sections drawn across the entire Himalayan orogen typically depict the Main Frontal thrust system as the surface expression of a low-angle, basal thrust along which the Indian plate is subducted beneath the Himalaya and southern Tibet and into which the Main Boundary thrust system and Main Central thrust system root. In this model, the basal thrust—referred to hereafter as the Himalayan Sole thrust—must become basement-involved north of the downdip projection of the Main Central thrust system, or approximately at the latitude of the Himalayan range crest."

Source: "Tectonics of the Himalaya and southern Tibet from two perspectives," by K.V. Hodges, Geological Society of America Bulletin: Vol. 112, No. 3, pp. 324–350.

Basically, wherever two tectonic plates collide, there will be magmatic or volcanic uplifting and consequental mountain formations.

 

No vallich. Once again you are wrong. The uplift was caused by the piling up of two continental masses with thick, lightweight sialic crust on top of each other and a consequent isostatic uplift. The volcanic activitity is secondary and is not responsible for the uplift.
Not only are you wrong, but as I predicted you have tried to cover up your error with a further spewing of distorted and misinterpreted facts.
Please cease this behviour forthwith.

Be advised I have again reported you for persistent posting of faulty information and failure to acknowledge prior errors.

 

I never said that it was "primary." In fact in my above post I said that the colliding of plates was primary. I then said "wherever two tectonic plates collide, there will be magmatic or volcanic uplifting" - secondary, okay now? Are you disagreeing with this? If so, Examples please.

Are you finished having your little immature, unproductive, useless, revengeful jollies yet? What's the purpose in you following me all over these forums and posting nothing but criticism? Sciforum is called the "intelligent community." How are your antagonistic replies without any content contributing in any way? They're just empty "void" posts.

You're stalking me, and just trying to be argumentative. You seem to think you own the domain?

 

As stated:

"The Himalayan range was formed when the Indian plate and Eurasian plate collided and there are remnants of volcanic activity and volcano mountains all across the Himilayas; however, the peaks of Mount Everest were probably formed by glacier activities."

"As the plates collided, the sinking ocean floor generated volcanoes in southern Tibet because the rock at the top of the descending plate melted, from friction and the huge pressures of collision. However, by 25 million years ago the fast moving Indian continent had almost entirely closed over the intervening ocean, squeezing the sediments on the ocean foor. Since the sediments were lightweight, instead of sinking along with the plate, they crumpled into the mountain ranges—the Himalayas."

Source: "Tectonics of the Himalaya and southern Tibet from two perspectives," by K.V. Hodges, Geological Society of America Bulletin: Vol. 112, No. 3, pp. 324–350.

 

Which nowhere says that Mount Everest is the result of volcanic activity. ie you were wrong. Now you are compounding your error by trying to wriggle out of admitting it ever occured.
Strike Three.

Vallich as I have made abundantly clear to you in the past you continually misinterpret and misrepresent what you have read. This is understandable. It happens to everyone from time to time. You have taken it to a fine art. Where you differ form most is your persistent failure to admit when you are in error.

I am not stalking you. Stop accusing me of stalking you. You aren't worth stalking you silly child.When I sdee your nonsense on a thread I shall correct it. If you want that to cease then stop posting nonsense or admit when you are wrong. Its that simple.

Yesterday you said "If you measure a mountain from the ground level up, then it is Mount Everest is 29,035.

Both of these mountains were formed by volcanoes. "

That is a clear statement that Mount Everest was primarily formed by volcanoes.. In any case volcanoes were not even a secondary in its formation. You are wrong. This should not be this difficult. You made a simple small error which you are now blowing out of all proportion by failing to admit to.

Wise up little man. Wise up now.

 

I have an uncanny sense of deja vu about this.

I know that we've already debated for a long time about this in a previous thread, but I cannot help interrupting again. A thrust fault is a low angle reverse fault, and is caused by convergent tectonic forces. Thrust faults allow crustal shortening to be accommodated (via vertical thickening) by the stacking of fault blocks, one on top of another. Thrust faults often develop parallel to fold limbs. So a thrust system is caused by tectonic forces, when the direction of maximum compression is in the horizontal plane.
In the case of the Himalayas, it is quite clear that the cause of these large forces (and hence of the thrust system) is India's northward drive into Eurasia.
Igneous activity can be a result of such forces (through anatexis), but is not the cause.

There are remnants of volcanic activity in Wales and Scotland too. That doesn't make volcanism the cause of the geomorphology of these regions.

I am disagreeing with this. In the very same sentence as you quoted, you stated that the orogeny was a consequence of "magmatic or volcanic uplifting".
Your exact words were:

(My boldface.)

Also, I seem to have missed the relevance of this quote of yours:

I'm certainly no expert on the geology of India, but it's quite obvious to me that rift-related basalts are neither a cause nor a consequence of the Himalayan orogeny. I would say the same about Permian intrusions. If they do pertain to the debate, please could you elucidate for me?

 

I heard once that the MacDonnell Range in midwest Australia was once higher than the Himilayas.

Can anyone verify the authenticity of this claim?

 

This is highly possible as the Himalayas are actually part of the Alpine-Himalaya Mountain Range that extends from Western Europe to New Zealand. Even though the Macdonnell Ranges are only 4,000 feet now, they contributed to the formation of the Himalayas and no doubt where much higher during the Panaea era.

"The Macdonnell Ranges were formed 300 million years ago when a large basin covered with sediment 10km [32,808 feet] deep underwent a violent upheaval, forcing the underlying rock onto its side."
http://travel.independent.co.uk/ausandpacific/article28705.ece

Mt. Everest is 29,035 feet. hmmm?

"Some of the oldest rocks in the world have been found in Australia, and are around 3.7 billion years old, from the Murchison region in Western Australia. These ancient rocks contain tiny crystals that are even older, dating from 4.4 billion years ago, close to the time of the Earth's own formation."
http://www.ahc.gov.au/publications/geofossil/window.html

"Australia was once part of the enormous landmass Gondwanaland, which earlier formed part of the supercontinent Pangaea....The thick sedimentary rocks of the Great Dividing Range were deposited in a long, broad north-south depression, or geosyncline, during an interval that spanned most of the Paleozoic Era (570 million to 225 million years ago). Compressive forces buckled these rocks at least twice during the era, forming mountain ranges and chains of volcanoes. However, the volcanoes have long since become extinct, and as a result the mountain ranges are extremely eroded."
http://encarta.msn.com/encyclopedia_761568792/Australia.html

 

"Rift-related basalts are widespread in the Tibetan sedimentary sequence of Zanskar and Kashmir, India and rare Permian alkali granites have been found to intrude the section. Increasing continental-margin instability in Aptian–Albian time is indicated by the formation of regionally important unconformities and the inception of alkalic volcanism. These events, probably marking the separation of the Indian plate from Gondwana and the beginning of its northward drift toward Eurasia....Marine conditions persisted on the part of the Indian margin exposed in the Zanskar Range until early Eocene (Ypresian) time, when red beds containing ophiolitic debris first appeared in the stratigraphic succession....the meta-igneous rocks and associated leucogranites is referred to here as the Greater Himalayan zone."

Direct Quote, Source: "Tectonics of the Himalaya and southern Tibet from two perspectives," by K.V. Hodges, Geological Society of America Bulletin: Vol. 112, No. 3, pp. 324–350.

Whenever two tectonic plates collide there will be a fluidity due to the extreme counter forces of compression (molten magma). There will be an uplifting.