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Published online 17 October 2007 | Nature | doi:10.1038/news.2007.172
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Speedy continental collision explained
India's crash into Asia was driven by plate thickness.
About fifty million years ago, present-day India was involved in a horrific accident. The out-of-control subcontinent ploughed into Eurasia, pushing up the Himalayas and the Tibetan Plateau.
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For comparison of drift rate, Wikipedia says South America and Africa are drifting apart at 5.7 cm per year, and that the fastest seafloor spreading is 17.2 cm per year along the East Pacific Rise. India is moving at 20 cm per year. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Continental_drift#Various_data
I do not think there is any rule behind the whole thing. It was a history and the only right thing we should do is to find out how it happened, not why.
the article is good but it could be more informative and illustrative so that the facts gets more clear after reading.I think there is a rule of whole thing which is obvious always. Land movement and collission is must so it helped to increase the size of Himalayas.
Let me start with the assumption that a force splitting a continent and driving two fragments apart is directed (approximately) perpendicular to earth's surface. Such force should transfer (approximately) the same momentum to both fragments. As the mass of each fragment is derived from surface size and lithosphere thickness, the same momentum (in antiparallel direction) would induce different velocities to fragments of different surface size and/or lithosphere thickness, with the low mass fragment moving faster than the high mass fragment. Taking the angles of movement into account, the assumtion of momentum transfer could be tested whether or not it can explain observed differences in the speed of plate movements.