Scientists finally figured out how North American’s highest mountain formed

Mount Denali, North America’s highest mountain, is a beautiful sight. While beautiful, though, scientists have long wondered exactly how this mountain came to be. Now, new research has finally pinpointed how the Denali Fault formed, giving birth to the spectacular mountain we know today.

The Denali Fault is what scientists call a strike-slip fault. This is essentially a place where two chunks of the continental crust slide past each other. While this fault has been the birth of massive magnitude 7.9 earthquakes in the past, it is the fault’s status between 72 million and 56 million years ago that has scientists so excited right now.

That’s because researchers believe that during that time period, the ancient fault was actually a spot where two land masses were joined together. These two landmasses were the Wrangellia Composite Terrane and the western edge of North America. They believe that the two masses collided and gave birth to North America’s highest mountain.

What is especially intriguing about this fault, though, is that it is one of three different faults that formed at the same time under the same conditions. These conditions helped give rise to Mount Denali. This theory was first proposed in the 1990s and is the basis of new research published in the journal Geology.

However, nobody had dug deep into the theory to confirm it until now. Proving that North America’s highest mountain formed because of a collision of tectonic plates isn’t exactly news, of course. That’s how mountains typically formed as the Earth evolved over the past several billion years.

However, the fact that the Denali Fault came to be at the same time as two others, and it happened due to a phenomenon known as inverted metamorphism—where rocks formed under high temperatures and pressure are found above rocks formed under lower pressure and temperatures—is very intriguing.

So, Mount Denlia, North America’s highest mountain, seems to be a grand reminder of where a once-distant land mass was connected to the North American plate.

The post Scientists finally figured out how North American’s highest mountain formed appeared first on BGR.

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Scientists finally figured out how North American’s highest mountain formed originally appeared on BGR.com on Wed, 25 Dec 2024 at 18:42:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.