Mountain Formation

Mountain formation refers to the geological processes that underlie the formation of mountains. These processes are associated with large-scale movements of the earth's crust (plate tectonics). The formation of mountain ranges occurs by means of lateral movements as opposed to vertical ones. Mountain formation is related to plate tectonics. Folding, faulting, volcanic activity, igneous intrusion and metamorphism are all parts of the orogenic process of mountain building. The understanding of specific landscape features in terms of the underlying tectonic processes is called tectonic geomorphology, and the study of geologically young or ongoing processes is called neotectonics.

Read more about Mountain Formation:  Types of Mountains, Models

Famous quotes containing the words mountain and/or formation:

    Nor has science sufficient humanity, so long as the naturalist overlooks the wonderful congruity which subsists between man and the world; of which he is lord, not because he is the most subtile inhabitant, but because he is its head and heart, and finds something of himself in every great and small thing, in every mountain stratum, in every new law of color, fact of astronomy, or atmospheric influence which observation or analysis lay open.
    Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)

    ... the mass migrations now habitual in our nation are disastrous to the family and to the formation of individual character. It is impossible to create a stable society if something like a third of our people are constantly moving about. We cannot grow fine human beings, any more than we can grow fine trees, if they are constantly torn up by the roots and transplanted ...
    Agnes E. Meyer (1887–1970)