And other incredible bits of geology I've picked up from a recent addiction of mine to "Earth Story" on UK History.
Like that the Tibetan plateau is only there because it's the ancient "bow wave" of India pushing up into Asia, and (although India still is pushing north) the whole plateau is no longer supported underneath by that original supercollision, and will rapidly (in geological terms) sink back to possibly even sub-sealevel heights, a bit like Death Valley.
And that the remnants of the mountains in Britain (the Grampians, Snowdonia, even Dartmoor) were once the highest mountain range the Earth has ever seen. And haven't disappeared through weathering, or glacial action, but simply because gravity has sucked them back down, like a pile of syrup pooling back and spreading out across a plate, hence Northern Europe's surprisingly extensive continental shelf.
Amazing stuff. I wish I'd done geology, now, at school.
Like that the Tibetan plateau is only there because it's the ancient "bow wave" of India pushing up into Asia, and (although India still is pushing north) the whole plateau is no longer supported underneath by that original supercollision, and will rapidly (in geological terms) sink back to possibly even sub-sealevel heights, a bit like Death Valley.
And that the remnants of the mountains in Britain (the Grampians, Snowdonia, even Dartmoor) were once the highest mountain range the Earth has ever seen. And haven't disappeared through weathering, or glacial action, but simply because gravity has sucked them back down, like a pile of syrup pooling back and spreading out across a plate, hence Northern Europe's surprisingly extensive continental shelf.
Amazing stuff. I wish I'd done geology, now, at school.