'Outstanding Academic Title' Choice, magazine of the Association of
College & Research Libraries, American Library Association.Most
mountains on Earth occur within relatively well-defined, narrow belts
separated by wide expanses of much lower-lying ground. Their
distribution is not random but is caused by the now well-understood
geological processes of plate tectonics. Some mountains mark the site of
a former plate collision - where one continental plate has ridden up
over another, resulting in a zone of highly deformed and elevated rocks.
Others are essentially volcanic in origin.The most obvious mountain
belts today - the Himalayas, the Alps and the Andes, for example - are
situated at currently active plate boundaries. Others, such as the
Caledonian mountains of the British Isles and Scandinavia, are the
product of a plate collision that happened far in the geological past
and have no present relationship to a plate boundary. These are much
lower, with a generally gentler relief, worn down through millennia of
erosion.The presently active mountain belts are arranged in three
separate systems: the Alpine-Himalayan ranges, the circum-Pacific belt
and the mid-ocean ridges. Much of the Alpine-Himalayan belt is
relatively well known, but large parts of the circum-Pacific and
ocean-ridge systems are not nearly as familiar, but contain equally
impressive mountain ranges despite large parts being partly or wholly
submerged.This book takes the reader along the active mountain systems
explaining how plate tectonic processes have shaped them, then looks
more briefly at some of the older mountain systems whose tectonic
origins are more obscure. It is aimed at those with an interest in
mountains and in developing an understanding of the geological processes
that create them.
