Birth of Earth’s Tallest Mountains: Himalayas’ Ancient Origins Explained by New Study

In order to ascertain their theory, scientists have collected numerous rock samples from the Ladakh Himalayas to calculate their “ancient latitude”.

A group of scientists has moved to bring forth a bold theory that would provide a new explanation to how the mountain range that has some of the Earth’s highest peaks, the Himalayas, was formed millions of years ago.

According to an article by one of the researchers, an MIT PhD student in Earth, Atmospheric and Planetary Sciences named Craig Robert Martin, whereas geologists “generally thought” that the Himalayas were formed in a “single continental collision” about 55 million years ago, his team “has shown” that it was actually a “complex, multi-stage process involving at least two subduction zones”.

In order to confirm this hypothesis, Martin and his team undertook numerous expeditions to the Ladakh Himalayas to collect “hundreds of 1-inch diameter rock core samples [and] measure the magnetism” of these rocks and to calculate their “ancient latitude”.

This discovery, Martin noted, “can be explained only if there were two subduction zones pulling India rapidly toward Eurasia, rather than just one”.

Sourse: sputniknews.com