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How did crustal shortening help form the Plateau of Tibet and the Altiplano?
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continental landform
Davis's proposed landscape-development states. The morphology shown is not actually time-indicative. For example, A could be a gully system in soft sediment or a canyon such as the Royal Gorge in Colorado, which is millions of years old. The ridge-ravine topography of B would normally develop under humid conditions, but the river meandering on alluvium indicates a prior or extraneous non-humid aggrading mechanism. The riverine plain of C implies a complex history of planation and aggradation in a current fluvial mode.
Crustal shortening is a primary tectonic process that thickens the Earth's crust, leading to the formation of high-elevation plateaus like the Plateau of Tibet and the Altiplano.1
In these regions, crustal shortening creates high mountain ranges along the plateau margins. When drainage is internal, eroded material from these mountains is deposited in the intervening valleys rather than being transported away. Over time, these basins fill with debris, effectively burying the original mountain topography and creating a broad, flat-surfaced plateau.1
- Plateau of Tibet: Its extreme height is a direct consequence of the collision between the Indian subcontinent and Eurasia. As India penetrated thousands of kilometers into the Asian continent, the crust of the Tibetan Plateau underwent severe shortening, approximately doubling its thickness.23
- Altiplano: Similar to other Andean-type belts, the Altiplano's high elevation is maintained by thickened crust resulting from both the intrusion of magma and crustal shortening within the overriding plate during the subduction of oceanic lithosphere.4
These plateaus are essentially mountain ranges buried in their own debris, surviving erosion primarily in dry climates where the process is slow.1