Geography Reference
In-Depth Information
means there must be other locales where they are meeting head on, or sliding by each other. Three
important results are mountains, earthquakes, and volcanoes.
Figure 6-2:
Plates and plate
boundaries.
Making Mountains Out of Molehills
Mountains and mountainous terrain are pretty hard to miss, and everybody knows them when they
see them. Likewise, most people recognize the aesthetic appeal of mountains, their value as recre-
ational resources, and the problems they pose for surface transportation systems, land settlement, and
agriculture. In addition, however, mountains are of particular interest to geography for three reasons:
They are climate makers.
Mountains may cause some areas to have abundant moisture
and others to be bone-dry. Thus, they are major factors in the geography of climate, as you
will see in Chapter 9.
They are culture makers.
Mountainous terrain has historically tended to isolate people
and impede their ability to share ideas and material things. Thus, as you will see in Chapter
13, they have tended to encourage development of separate cultures, act as barriers between
cultures, and in general, serve as major factors in the geography of culture.
They are country makers.
Because they are such visible landscape features, mountains
and mountainous features — such as ridges — have often been used to designate frontiers
between countries and states. Thus, as you will see in Chapter 14, they are major factors in
political geography.
For now, however, the focus is on the causes and consequences of mountain building
per se
rather
than the climatic, cultural, or political effects. As regards causes, mountains owe their immediate ori-
gins and locations to three processes: folding, faulting, and subduction. Each is discussed in the fol-
lowing sections.
