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Scientists at Columbia University’s Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory report direct evidence that one of the Earth’s great crustal plates is cracking in two.
In a report published in the most recent issue of Earth and Planetary Science Letters (vol. 133), the scientists say they have confirmed that the Indo-Australian Plate–long identified as a single plate on which both India and Australia lie–appears to have broken apart just south of the Equator beneath the Indian Ocean. The break has been underway for the past several million years, and now the two continents are moving independently of one another in slightly different directions.
Scientists have known that for some 50 million years, the Indian subcontinent has been pushing northward into Eurasia, forcefully raising the Tibetan Plateau and the Himalayan Mountains. The new research suggests that starting about 8 million years ago, the accumulated mass became so great that the Indo-Australian Plate buckled and broke under the stress.
“The result of this critical stage in the collision between India and Asia is the breakup of the Indo-Australia Plate into separate Indian and Australian plates,” Jeffrey Weissel, a scientist at Lamont-Doherty, Columbia’s earth sciences research institute in Palisades, N.Y., said in an interview.
raidersnewsupdate.com/lead-story25.htm
In a report published in the most recent issue of Earth and Planetary Science Letters (vol. 133), the scientists say they have confirmed that the Indo-Australian Plate–long identified as a single plate on which both India and Australia lie–appears to have broken apart just south of the Equator beneath the Indian Ocean. The break has been underway for the past several million years, and now the two continents are moving independently of one another in slightly different directions.
Scientists have known that for some 50 million years, the Indian subcontinent has been pushing northward into Eurasia, forcefully raising the Tibetan Plateau and the Himalayan Mountains. The new research suggests that starting about 8 million years ago, the accumulated mass became so great that the Indo-Australian Plate buckled and broke under the stress.
“The result of this critical stage in the collision between India and Asia is the breakup of the Indo-Australia Plate into separate Indian and Australian plates,” Jeffrey Weissel, a scientist at Lamont-Doherty, Columbia’s earth sciences research institute in Palisades, N.Y., said in an interview.
raidersnewsupdate.com/lead-story25.htm
