The Tibetan Plateau
The Tibetan Plateau is an immense upland, some 3500 by 1500 kilometers in size, averaging more than 5000 meters in elevation. It includes almost all the world's territory higher than 4000 meters. Its southern rim, the Himalaya-Karakoram complex, contains not just Mount Everest and all 13 other peaks higher than 8000 meters, but hundreds of 7000-meter peaks each higher than anywhere else on Earth. The Tibetan Plateau is not just the largest, highest area in the world today; it may be the largest and highest in all of geologic history. That's because the set of events that formed it appears to be unique: a full-speed collision of two continental plates. Raising the Tibetan Plateau Nearly 100 million years ago, India separated from Africa as the supercontinent Gondwanaland broke up. From there the Indian plate moved north at speeds of around 150 millimeters per year—much faster than any plate is moving today. The Indian plate moved so fast because it was being...