Abstract
THE greatest mountain system in the world is the Alpine-Himalayan, which forms the backbone of Europe and Asia. Its continuity has been proved from western Europe to eastern India. Its further eastward continuation has long been subject of controversy. According to one view it passed northeastward across central China to Bering Straits; according to another it was bent round against the mass of Chinese Tibet, and passed through western Burma to Sumatra and thence along the southern islands of the Eastern Archipelago. The interpretation of the mountain structure of Chinese Tibet is complicated by being due to movements at two different dates. The later mountains are of the same age as the Alps and Himalaya and are geologically modern. The other group is much older, and its fragments remain as highlands, which are the worn down stumps of the mountain foundations. The older system is represented in Europe by the Hercynian Mountains, and in Asia by the Altaids, members of which cross Chinese Tibet on lines approximately north and south, and continue southward as the Indo-Malayan Mountains. The Himalayan and Altaid Mountains meet in Chinese Tibet, and the mountain lines due to these two systems have to be carefully distinguished. The Himalayan movements have disturbed the grain due to the older Altaid folding and they admit of simplest proof where the rocks were not in existence when the Altaid Mountains were made. For example, the folds and over-folds in the salt-bearing red sandstones of Yunnan must be post-Altaid, as those rocks were not in existence until after the Altaid movements. In other places the evidence is more complex. Some of the folds are too shallow to be Altaid, and the arrangement of the outcrop of the older rocks indicates upfolds on lines with the Himalayan trend.
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GREGORY, J. The Mountain Structure and Geographical Relations of South-Eastern Asia. Nature 115, 464–465 (1925). https://doi.org/10.1038/115464a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/115464a0