Mike Searle: The Formation Of The Himalayas

The Himalayas are home to some of the tallest mountains in the world, including Everest. For most of history people have wondered and disputed about how it was that these mountains formed. Many people devote much of their lives to researching and learning about how these mountains came to be. One of these people is Professor Mike Searle. Known as one of the best in his field, Searle is a geologist that is behind much of the recent research and discoveries on the Himalayas. Searle wrote the book Colliding Continents to express his discoveries of the Himalayan mountains to consumers interested in the topic. In this book Searle provides many lines of evidence used to understand the formation of the Himalayas. Some of these are the rocks collected …show more content…
Firstly, the rock type that is found in the summit rocks of Everest is limestone. Limestone is a rock type that is mostly found in shallow to deep waters. Limestone can be found around the planet in places where ocean floor has come above sea level. This suggests that the peak of Everest, the highest land point on our planet, was at one time under water. The summit rocks of Everest contain corals and other fossils of sea life. Unless sea creatures somehow reached the peak of our planet, this is definite evidence that the peak was at one point subaquatic. Geologists know that many years ago there was an ocean between the Indian and Eurasian plates. The collision of these plates brought rock that was at the bottom of this ocean five miles above sea …show more content…
Although at times it is hard for me to understand some of the things Searle talks about, I am able to pull out the key points and use those to get the big Picture. What I found most interesting in the pieces we used in this class is that idea that some of the highest points on our planet were at one time some of the lowest points on our planet. There is much evidence that simply cannot be disputes that this happened. Rocks at the peak of Everest are made of limestone, which is found mostly under, or near water. This is because these rocks were at one point on the floor of an ocean between the Indian and Eurasian plates. These continents collided 50 million years ago, which in terms of deep time, is an extremely short amount of time. These mountains are still today rising and bringing these rocks higher into the sky. Searle pointed out in the video that in stream running from ice found high in the mountains you can find prehistoric fossils of sea life. This happens because the water picks up the fossils at very high altitudes and deposits them thousands of meters lower at the floor of these streams. These fossils can provide much information about what organisms lived in a body of water that doesn’t even exist anymore. The rocks below the peak came from even