When an oceanic plate is subducted beneath a continental lithosphere, an

Andean mountain range develops on the edge of the continent. If the

subducting plate also contains some continental lithosphere, plate
convergence eventually brings both continents into juxtaposition. While
the oceanic lithosphere is relatively dense and sinks into the
asthenosphere, the greater sialic content of the continental lithosphere
ascribes positive buoyancy in the asthenosphere, which hinders the
continental lithosphere to be subducted any great distance. Consequently,
a continental lithosphere arriving at a trench will confront the overriding
continent. Rapid relative convergence is halted and crustal shortening
forms a collision mountain range. The plane marking the locus of collision
is a suture, which usually preserves slivers of the oceanic lithosphere that
formerly separated the continents, known as ophiolites.

The collision between the Indian subcontinent and what is now Tibet
began in the Eocene. It involved and still involves north-south

m
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convergence throughout southern Tibet and the Himalayas. This youthful
mountain area is the type example for studies of continental collision

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processes.

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The Himalayas
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Location
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The Himalayas form a nearly 3000 km long, 250-350 km wide range

between India to the south and the huge Tibetan plateau, with a mean
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v i y re

elevation of 5000 m, to the north. The Himalayan mountain belt has a

relatively simple, arcuate, and cylindrical geometry over most of its length
and terminates at both ends in nearly transverse syntaxes, i.e. areas
where orogenic structures turn sharply about a vertical axis. Both
ed d

syntaxes are named after the main peaks that tower above them, the
ar stu

Namche Barwa (7756 m) to the east and the Nanga Parbat (8138 m) to
the west, in Pakistan.
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Th

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