The geology of the Himalayas is a record of the most dramatic and visible creations of the immense mountain range formed by plate tectonic forces and sculpted by weathering and erosion. The Himalayas, which stretch over 2400 km between the Namcha Barwa syntaxis at the eastern end of the mountain range and the Nanga Parbat syntaxis at the western end, are the result of an ongoing orogeny — the collision of the continental crust of two tectonic plates, namely, the Indian Plate thrusting into the Eurasian Plate. The Himalaya-Tibet region supplies fresh water for more than one-fifth of the world population, and accounts for a quarter of the global sedimentary budget. Topographically, the belt has many superlatives: the highest rate of uplift, the highest relief, among the highest erosion rates at 2–12 mm/yr, the source of some of the greatest rivers and the highest concentration of glaciers outside of the polar regions. This last feature earned the Himalaya its name, originating from the Sanskrit for "the abode of the snow".
The Penninic nappes or the Penninicum, commonly abbreviated as Penninic, are one of three nappe stacks and geological zones in which the Alps can be divided. In the western Alps the Penninic nappes are more obviously present than in the eastern Alps, where they crop out as a narrow band. The name Penninic is derived from the Pennine Alps, an area in which rocks from the Penninic nappes are abundant.
The Indus-Yarlung suture zone or the Indus-Yarlung Tsangpo suture is a tectonic suture in southern Tibet and across the north margin of the Himalayas which resulted from the collision between the Indian Plate and the Eurasian Plate starting about 52 Ma. The north side of the suture zone is the Ladakh Batholith of the Karakoram-Lhasa Block. The rocks of the suture zone consist of an ophiolite mélanges composed of Neotethys oceanic crustal flyschs and ophiolites; the Dras Volcanics: which are basalts, dacites and minor radiolarian cherts – the remains of a mid- to late Mesozoic volcanic island arc; and the Indus Molasse which are an Eocene or later continental clastic sediments.
The Western Carpathians are a mountain range and geomorphological province that forms the western part of the Carpathian Mountains.
Cimmeria was an ancient continent, or, rather, a string of microcontinents or terranes, that rifted from Gondwana in the Southern Hemisphere and was accreted to Eurasia in the Northern Hemisphere. It consisted of parts of present-day Turkey, Iran, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Tibet, China, Myanmar, Thailand, and Malaysia. Cimmeria rifted from the Gondwanan shores of the Paleo-Tethys Ocean during the Early Permian and as the Neo-Tethys Ocean opened behind it, during the Permian, the Paleo-Tethys closed in front of it. Because the different chunks of Cimmeria drifted northward at different rates, a Meso-Tethys Ocean formed between the different fragments during the Cisuralian. Cimmeria rifted off Gondwana from east to west, from Australia to the eastern Mediterranean. It stretched across several latitudes and spanned a wide range of climatic zones.
An accretionary wedge or accretionary prism forms from sediments accreted onto the non-subducting tectonic plate at a convergent plate boundary. Most of the material in the accretionary wedge consists of marine sediments scraped off from the downgoing slab of oceanic crust, but in some cases the wedge includes the erosional products of volcanic island arcs formed on the overriding plate.
The Western Carpathians are an arc-shaped mountain range, the northern branch of the Alpine-Himalayan fold and thrust system called the Alpide belt, which evolved during the Alpine orogeny. In particular, their pre-Cenozoic evolution is very similar to that of the Eastern Alps, and they constitute a transition between the Eastern Alps and the Eastern Carpathians.
The Bangong suture zone is a key location in the central Tibet conjugate fault zone. Approximately 1,200 km long, the suture trends in an east–west orientation. Located in central Tibet between the Lhasa and Qiangtang terranes, it is a discontinuous belt of ophiolites and mélange that is 10–20 km wide, up to 50 km wide in places. The northern part of the fault zone consists of northeast striking sinistral strike-slip faults while the southern part consists of northwest striking right lateral strike-slip faults. These conjugate faults to the north and south of the Bangong intersect with each other along the Bangong-Nujiang suture zone.
High pressure terranes along the ~1200 km long east-west trending Bangong-Nujiang suture zone (BNS) on the Tibetan Plateau have been extensively mapped and studied. Understanding the geodynamic processes in which these terranes are created is key to understanding the development and subsequent deformation of the BNS and Eurasian deformation as a whole.
The main points that are discussed in the geology of Iran include the study of the geological and structural units or zones; stratigraphy; magmatism and igneous rocks; ophiolite series and ultramafic rocks; and orogenic events in Iran.
The base of rocks that underlie Borneo, an island in Southeast Asia, was formed by the arc-continent collisions, continent–continent collisions and subduction–accretion due to convergence between the Asian, India–Australia, and Philippine Sea-Pacific plates over the last 400 million years. The active geological processes of Borneo are mild as all of the volcanoes are extinct. The geological forces shaping SE Asia today are from three plate boundaries: the collisional zone in Sulawesi southeast of Borneo, the Java-Sumatra subduction boundary and the India-Eurasia continental collision.
The geology of Myanmar is shaped by dramatic, ongoing tectonic processes controlled by shifting tectonic components as the Indian Plate slides northwards and towards Southeast Asia. Myanmar spans across parts of three tectonic plates separated by north-trending faults. To the west, a highly oblique subduction zone separates the offshore Indian Plate from the Burma microplate, which underlies most of the country. In the center-east of Myanmar, a right lateral strike slip fault extends from south to north across more than 1,000 km (620 mi). These tectonic zones are responsible for large earthquakes in the region. The India-Eurasia plate collision which initiated in the Eocene provides the last geological pieces of Myanmar, and thus Myanmar preserves a more extensive Cenozoic geological record as compared to records of the Mesozoic and Paleozoic eras. Myanmar is physiographically divided into three regions: the Indo-Burman Range, Myanmar Central Belt and the Shan Plateau; these all display an arcuate shape bulging westwards. The varying regional tectonic settings of Myanmar not only give rise to disparate regional features, but also foster the formation of petroleum basins and a diverse mix of mineral resources.
The Qinling orogenic belt is a tectonic feature that evolved throughout the Proterozoic and Phanerozoic eons due to a variety of tectonic activities. It is a part of the Central China Orogenic Belt, aligned in an east–west orientation across Central China, and spans portions of Shaanxi, Henan and Gansu provinces along the Qinling Mountains which are one of the greatest mountain ranges in China. The first materials involved in the Qinling orogenic belt formed around 2.5 billion years ago, whereas the main morphology of the belt now largely reflects the Triassic collision between the North China Plate and the South China Plate and Cenozoic extension across China. During these 2.5 billion years, various types of rocks have been formed here due to different tectonic processes and chemical reactions between rocks. Therefore, geologists are able to reconstruct the evolution of mountain belt based on evidence preserved in these rocks.
The geology of Slovakia is structurally complex, with a highly varied array of mountain ranges and belts largely formed during the Alpine orogeny in Mesozoic and Cenozoic eras and with relicts of older Variscan structures of Paleozoic age. The internal zones of the West Carpathian orogen collapsed during Paleogene forming the Central Carpathian Paleogne Basin and later in Miocene the Pannonian Basin and Carpathian volcanic chain were formed.
The geology of Italy includes mountain ranges such as the Alps and the Apennines formed from the uplift of igneous and primarily marine sedimentary rocks all formed since the Paleozoic. Some active volcanoes are located in Insular Italy.
The Junggar Basin, also known as the Dzungarian Basin or Zungarian Basin, is one of the largest sedimentary basins in Northwest China. It is located in Dzungaria in northern Xinjiang, and enclosed by the Tarbagatai Mountains of Kazakhstan in the northwest, the Altai Mountains of Mongolia in the northeast, and the Heavenly Mountains in the south. The geology of Junggar Basin mainly consists of sedimentary rocks underlain by igneous and metamorphic basement rocks. The basement of the basin was largely formed during the development of the Pangea supercontinent during complex tectonic events from Precambrian to late Paleozoic time. The basin developed as a series of foreland basins – in other words, basins developing immediately in front of growing mountain ranges – from Permian time to the Quaternary period. The basin's preserved sedimentary records show that the climate during the Mesozoic era was marked by a transition from humid to arid conditions as monsoonal climatic effects waned. The Junggar basin is rich in geological resources due to effects of volcanism and sedimentary deposition. According to Guinness World Records it is a land location remotest from open sea with great-circle distance of 2,648 km from the nearest open sea at 46°16′8″N86°40′2″E.
The South China Craton or South China Block is one of the Precambrian continental blocks in China. It is traditionally divided into the Yangtze Block in the NW and the Cathaysia Block in the SE. The Jiangshan–Shaoxing Fault represents the suture boundary between the two sub-blocks. Recent study suggests that the South China Block possibly has one more sub-block which is named the Tolo Terrane. The oldest rocks in the South China Block occur within the Kongling Complex, which yields zircon U–Pb ages of 3.3–2.9 Ga.
The subduction tectonics of the Philippines is the control of geology over the Philippine archipelago. The Philippine region is seismically active and has been progressively constructed by plates converging towards each other in multiple directions. The region is also known as the Philippine Mobile Belt due to its complex tectonic setting.
The geology of New Caledonia includes all major rock types, which here range in age from ~290 million years old (Ma) to recent. Their formation is driven by alternate plate collisions and rifting. The mantle-derived Eocene Peridotite Nappe is the most significant and widespread unit. The igneous unit consists of ore-rich ultramafic rocks thrust onto the main island. Mining of valuable metals from this unit has been an economical pillar of New Caledonia for more than a century.
The 1858 Prome earthquake occurred on August 24 at 15:38 local time in British Burma. The earthquake occurred with a magnitude of 7.6–8.3 on the moment magnitude scale. It had an epicenter in near the city of Pyay (Prome), Bago. The shock was felt with a maximum Modified Mercalli intensity of XI (Extreme) for about one minute. Severe damage was reported in Bago, and off the coast of Rakhine, an island sunk.
