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The Great Himalayas
The great Himalaya Mountain Range formed as a result of tectonic forces driving two continental plates towards each other, the Indian and Eurasian Plates. Mt. Everest, which stands at 8,848 meters above sea level and is the highest mountain on Earth located at Nepal, Asia.
All of today’s continental and oceanic plates started off connected as part of one big continental plate called the supercontinent Pangea. There were many supercontinents before Pangea, but Pangea is the last supercontinent that broke up to form today’s continents.
At about 55 million years ago, the northern tip of the Indian plate was crossing the equator, and about 40 million years ago it rammed into the Eurasian plate.
The rate of northward drifting of the Indian plate naturally slowed soon after it collided with the Eurasian plate. Scientists estimate the new rate of drifting was about half what it was before the collision occurred, so about 4.5 meters per 100 years. The two plates were now being pushed against one another in what would be called a convergent plate boundary environment.
In the 40 to 50 million years since the Indian plate has collided with the Eurasian plate, the crust that forms the Himalayas has been uplifted more than 9 kilometers, and the uplifting has not stopped. Even today, these two plates are still converging and pushing up the crust, adding to the height of the Himalayas at a rate of about 1 centimeter per year.
