What type of plate boundary andes mountains

The Andes run for about 7, kilometres with the highest peak, Mount Aconcagua in Argentina, rising nearly 7, metres above sea level. An international team of geologists were intrigued by the Andes' geology and have finally solved a mystery that scientists had previously been unable to answer: the mountains were formed only 45 million years ago yet the massive forces that pushed them up have been at work for million years as the Nazca tectonic plate is thrust under the South American continent.

We knew when the subduction began, but why did it take nearly million years before the mountain chain started to rise and what was it that caused the chain to bend the way it does in Bolivia? The researchers say the traditional approach to plate tectonics, of working back from data, resulted in 2D models with strong descriptive but no predictive power. I developed a three-dimensional, physical model — I used physics to predict the behaviour of tectonic plates — then I applied data tracing the Andes back 60 million years and it matched," Capitanio says.

The researcher essentially switched the traditional approach around: instead of being driven by the data and asking why, he took the predictive method of physics and started investigating what would happen to the physical model if he excluded some factors or added others. He then cross-checked the results with the actual geological data and found that some physical processes explained certain aspects while others produced different results.

Story Source: Materials provided by University of Bristol. Journal Reference : Laura A. Evenstar, Finlay M. Stuart, Adrian J. Hartley, Brain Tattitch. Slow Cenozoic uplift of the western Andean Cordillera indicated by cosmogenic3He in alluvial boulders from the Pacific Planation Surface. ScienceDaily, 18 November University of Bristol.

This has created a sequence of volcanoes and fold mountains, rising up to m at Aconcagua. The trench marking the boundary between the Nazca and South American plates to the West of the Andes mountains is called the Peru-Chile Trench, and reaches an incredible depth of m under the sea level. These areas are very hard to live in because of the physical geography. The relief is very steep making farming difficult, and the high altitude makes breathing difficult. The mountainous terrain make it difficult to construct roads and railways to allow for communications.

Complete the chart on this sheet using the website links below:. Wikipedia article on Yanacocha gold mine. BBC article on the Yanacocha Gold mine. Info about a mercury spill at the Yanacocha mine. No Dirty gold website about Yanacocha. Background to the Yuncan HEP plant. Protest over the Yuncan HEP plant. Some information about the pros and cons of dams just look at the 2 tables. Although the history of the Andes extends back into the Paleozoic with the accretion of different ter-ranes, especially in the southern parts of the mountain belt, most of the current-day Andean ranges were formed in Mesozoic to recent times.

The dominant processes in their formation are related to their location on the leading edge of the convergent plate boundary between south America and the Nazca plate. Late Proterozoic orogens and basins surrounding these cratons. The Andean belt forms the western side of South America and includes some Precambrian outcrops shown in purple.