By: Melissa, Conor, and Elliott

*Fault-block Mountains: are formed when faults or cracks in the earth's crust forced some materials or blocks of rock up and others down. *Dome Mountains: result of a great amount of melted rock (magma) pushing its way up under the earth crust. Without actually erupting onto the surface, the magma pushes up overlaying rock layers. *Volcanic Mountains: are formed by volcanoes. *Plateau Mountains (Erosion Mountains): are not formed by internal activity. Instead, these mountains are formed by erosion. Plateaus are large flat areas that have been pushed above sea level by forces within the Earth, or have been formed by layers of lava. The dictionary describes these as large areas of high levels of flat land, over 600 meters above sea level. Plateau mountains are often found near folded mountains. *Fold Mountains

Folded mountains are mountains formed mainly by the effects of folding on layers within the upper part of the Earth's crust. In the time before either plate tectonic theory developed, or the internal architecture of thrust belts became well understood, the term was used for most mountain belts, such as the Himalayas. The term is still fairly common in physical geography literature but has otherwise generally fallen out of use except as described below. The forces responsible for formation of the fold mountains are called orogeny movements. The term orogeny has derived from a Greek word meaning mountain building. These forces act at tangent to the surface of the earth and are primarily a result of plate tectonics.

How do they form?

Folded mountains are the most common type of mountain. The worlds largest mountain ranges are fold mountains. Fold mountains are actually formed by crust which have been uplifted and folded by compressional forces. This occurs along convergent plate boundaries where two plates move towards each other, between continental plates or between an oceanic and a continental plate. The crust and the rocks get bent and crumpled, and massive layers of Earth's crust gets uplifted as a result, forming spectacular fold mountains. These ranges were formed over millions of years. Fold mountains are formed when two plates collide head on, and their edges crumbled, much the same way as a piece of paper folds when pushed together. The upward folds are known as anticlines, and the downward folds are synclines.

Himalayan Mountains in Asia The Alps in Europe The Andes in South America The Rockies in North America The Urals in Russia

The Himalayan Mountains were formed when India crashed into Asia and pushed up the tallest mountain range on the continents.

In South America, the Andes Mountains were formed by the collision of the South American continental plate and the oceanic Pacific plate.

*Mountains make up about one-fifth of the world's landscape, and provide homes to at least one-tenth of the world's people.

*Heights of mountains are generally given as heights above sea level.

*The world's highest peak on land is Mount Everest in the Himalayas. It is 8,850.1728 m (29,036 ft.) tall. *Ben Nevis is also the highest mountain in Great Britain. *The tallest known mountain in the solar system is Olympus Mons, located on Mars. *There are mountains under the surface of the sea. *Mountains occur more often in oceans than on land; some islands are the peaks of mountains coming out of the water. *About 80 per cent of our planet's fresh water originates in the mountains. *All mountain ecosystems have one major characteristic in common - rapid changes in altitude, climate, soil, and vegetation over very short distances. *Plants that may be found on mountains include conifers, oak, chestnut, maple, junipers, stonecrops, camp ions, mosses, ferns and climbers. *The highest 14 mountains in the world are all found in the Himalayas. *In some mountainous areas the rivers are permanently frozen. These are called glaciers.

http://www.youtube.com/wa tch?v=g_yRnFqDwYA&feature =player_detailpage

www.buzzle.com www.woodlands-junior.sch.uk/homework/mountains www.wikipedia.com The mountains book by LIFE NATURE LIBRARY books Earth Science Textbook

The End