Tectonic Plates and Faults - Earthquake Engineering for Structural Design - page 160

160 Earthquake Engineering for Structural Design

5.3.3 Collision between Two Continental Plates

The most interesting diffuse zones are the ones resulting by the collision between
two continental plates (Wikipedia, nd), when the initial subduction is destroyed,
the continental crusts coming in contact direct, mountains are produced, and the
two continents sutured together (Fig. 5.17). The field of science named Orogeny
(from Greek, for mountain generating) (Wikipedia, nd) is involved with the
formation of mountains in the collision zone.
Among the most dramatic and visible creation and visible creation of plate
tectonic are the Himalayan Mountains, which stretch 2900km along the border
between India and Tibet (USGS, nd), (Fig. 5.18a). This immense mountain range
began to form when two large landmasses, India and Eurasia, driven by plates
movement, collided. Because both these continental landmasses have about the
same rock density, one plate could not subducted under the other. The presence of
impinging plate could only pushed up the Himalayas and the Tibetian Plateau
Figure 5.18b shows the meeting of the two plates before and after their collision. In
the future the two plates will probably continue to move at the same rate. So the
Himalayan peaks will continue to raise and the Tibetan plateau will have grown.

Figure 5. 16 Collision between two continental plates (after Oceanography, 2008)