Research: Mountain Building
Mountain ranges are among the most conspicuous features on the Earth’s surfaces. Most people are attracted to mountain ranges for their beauty and magnificence; geologists are attracted to them for more reasons: mountain belts are among the best places for studying many fundamental geological processes. Most mountain belts result from strong compressive stresses near convergent plate boundaries, where crustal rocks are squeezed, shortened, and piled up to form mountain ranges. Some of the largest mountain belts on earth, including the Himalayas and the Andes, are still rising today, making them ideal places for studying the interplays between tectonic forces and lithospheric properties. Rising of these large mountain belts has also played a major role in climate changes during the recent geological history. My students and I have studying the geodynamics of mountain building in the Himalayan-Tibetan plateau, the Andes, the Rockies and the North American Cordillera, the Tian Shan Mountains (China), and the Benda arc (Indonesia).
Recent and Ongoing Projects
- 3D modeling of the Himalayan-Tibetan Plateau
- Andes
- Rockies and North American Cordillera
- Timor
last update: winter 2005
credits
copyright 1999 Mian Liu
and The Curators of the University of Missouri