Читать книгу Geology For Dummies - Alecia M. Spooner - Страница 54

Plate tectonics theory explains that the movement of plates creates mountains by pushing crustal rocks together and up (see Chapters 9 and 10). But scientists have not gathered enough evidence to agree on what forces drive the uplift of mountains. Some suggest that a pushing force, exerted by the neighboring plate, forces the rocks upward. Others suggest that the removal of rocks by erosion (explained in Part 4) leads the continental rocks to “float” upward, like an iceberg melting in the ocean.

In Chapter 8, I present a line drawing of plate boundaries. It may seem very straightforward, with lines neatly separating continental plates from one another. But some areas of that map are almost unknown, and the lines have been drawn based on best-guess estimates. In regions such as the northeast Pacific plate, near Kamchatka (a peninsula in eastern Russia), researchers today map earthquake and volcano events in an attempt to pinpoint plate boundaries.