The Andes are young fold mountains. Give reasons.
Answers
Answer:
Answer. The Himalayasare known as the young fold mountains because they have been formed only few million years ago. They were formed because of thefolding of the earth's crust due to tectonic activity (fold mountains are formed when two tectonic plates collide with one another).
Explanation:
follow me
The Andes and the Himalayas are formed due to the compression that occured between 2 tectonic plates. In case of Himalayas, it was between Indo-Austral plate and Eurasian plate and in case of Andes, the two plates are the South American plate and the Nazca plate.
Earlier India was not part of the present Eurasia. During the continental drift, India and Australia which were islands at that time, started movement towards North. Imagine India at the current position of Africa. It slowly started drifting towards Eurasia. The current Himalayas were not existent at that moment. In the place of Himalayas, there was Tethys sea.
During this process, the Tethys sea got narrowed and when the Indo-Austral plate collided with the Eurasian plate, the Sediments of the Tethys sea had risen due to the compression from both ends. These risen sediments today are the Himalayas. Both the Eurasian and Indo-Austral plate are moving towards each other even today. Due to this compression, we can see that Himalayas grow about 1 cm per year. Usually, mountains get eroded due to the several agents like wind and water. But on the contrary, Himalayas rise every year.
Similarly, Andes mountains have also formed due to the similar phenomenon between the South American plate and Nazca plate.
These mountains are the youngest features on the earth compared to the other ones. Hence these are called as the young fold mountains. Since Himalayas have formed later, they are called youngest fold mountains.
Examples of other fold mountains include the Alps in Europe, Rocky mountains in North America.
