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Earth science

Making a mountain out of a plateau

A theory proposed in 2015 suggested that relatively flat surfaces in mountain ranges were formed by the reorganization of river networks. A fresh analysis rebuts this idea, reigniting discussion of a long-standing problem in Earth science.

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Figure 1: Characteristics of low-gradient mountain terrain depend on the formation mechanism.

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Correspondence to Hugh Sinclair.

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Sinclair, H. Making a mountain out of a plateau. Nature 542, 41–42 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1038/542041a

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