Myth vs Reality: Mountain Formation

Produced by the Space Telescope Science Institute’s Office of Public Outreach in collaboration with the NASA Earth Observatory.

All images, illustrations, and videos courtesy of NASA except:

·       Alfred Wegener photo courtesy of Bildarchiv Foto Marburg

·       Drawings of continental drift by Alfred Wegener from The Movements of the Continents and the Oceans

·       Lystrosaurus illustration courtesy of Nobu Tamura

·       Sea creature illustration copyright The National Library of Israel, Shapell Family Digitization Project _and The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Department of Geography – Historic Cities Research Project

·       Photo of Half Dome courtesy of D.L. Peck, U.S. Geological Survey

·       Photo of Kanchenjunga Mountain courtesy of Wikimedia user Anirban c8

·       Mountain formation illustrations by Marc Lussier (STScI)

·       Aerial photo of the Himalayan Mountains courtesy of Wikimedia user Pipimaru

 

Music courtesy of Associated Production Music

Written by Andrea Gianopoulos

Designed by Marc Lussier

(SPEECH)

[UPTEMPO MUSIC]

 

(DESCRIPTION)

Myth VS Reality

 

Myth, All mountains form along tectonic plate boundaries.

 

Reality, Most mountain ranges do form along plate boundaries, but mountains also form over volcanic hot spots, near faults that have significantly shifted Earth's crust up or down, or from rising magma that forms dome mountains.