A quantitative study of mountain building on an unsymmetrical earth

Abstract

The principle of isotatic equilibrium of the earth's crust is discussed and restated in a useful form which takes account of superposed vertical stresses. A quantitative study of the deformations produced in the earth's elastic crust by tangential compressional forces is made. The calculated physical properties of a suboceanic compressional downfold agree well with those observed in certain long and narrow ocean deeps.The properties of a downfault in continental regions are similarly deduced and it is shown that such a deformation evolves ultimately into a great sedimentary prism or geosyncline. The processes which fold and ultimately uplift the prism to form a mountain chain are quantitatively considered. A quantitative theory of mountain building leads to a law of mountain heights in good agreement with observation. The considered mechanisms are consistent with the principle of isostasy and with the author's earlier estimates concerning the concentration of stresses at the boundaries of the great continents.It is concluded that the circum-Pacific mountain chains could only have been generated on an unsymmetrical earth produced probably by a fission process much like that suggested in the author's binary star theory of the origin of the solar system ( Phys. Rev., 39, 130, 311 (1932)).