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Learning Objective:
To learn where fold mountains are and how they are
created
Fold mountains
Young fold mountains form in many parts of the world and they
form along the plate margins where great Earth movements have
taken place.
They are found at destructive plate margins and places where
there used to be destructive margins e.g. the West coast of
North America.
Fold mountains are formed when tectonic plates collide and the plates
fold up and are forced upwards into mountains.
1) There were long periods of quiet
between Earth movements during
which sedimentary rocks, thousands
of metres thick, formed in huge
depressions called geosynclines.
2) Rivers carried sediments and
deposited them into the depressions.
Over millions of years the sediments
were compressed into sedimentary
rocks such as sandstone and
limestone.
3) These sedimentary rocks were then
forced upwards into a series of folds
by the movement of the tectonic
plates. Sometimes the folds were
simple upfolds (anticlines) and
downfolds (synclines). In such
places fold were pushed over on one
side, giving overfolds.
Ring of Fire
http://blip.tv/scripts/flash/blipplayer.swf?
autoStart=false&file=http://blip.tv/file/get/GatmRingOfFireKS3556.flv?source=3
San Andreas Fault
http://blip.tv/scripts/flash/blipplayer.swf?
autoStart=false&file=http://blip.tv/file/get/GatmSanAndreasFault634.flv?source=3
Plate Boundaries
http://www.gatm.org.uk/?p=139
Ocean Trenches
The majority of ocean trenches are located around the sides of the Pacific Ocean.
They are associated with destructive plate margins.
The subduction zone is an ocean trench. One wall is formed by subducted ocean
plate (the Nazca plate), the other by the overriding continental plate (the South
American plate). Ocean trenches are very deep, typically 5000-10 000 metres
and narrow.