The structure of the Earth’s crust of Eurasia


The territory of Eurasia has been formed for hundreds of millions of years. The structure of the earth’s crust of Eurasia is more complex than that of other continents. Eurasia is located within three large lithospheric plates: the Eurasian, the Indo-Australian and the North American. At the heart of the lithospheric plates are several ancient and young platforms. Ancient platforms were formed in the Archean and Proterozoic eras, their age is several billion years. These are the remains of the former continent of Laurasia. These include: East European, Siberian, Sino-Korean, South Chinese. Also on the mainland there are ancient platforms that joined Eurasia later, separated from the mainland of Gondwana – the Arabian and Indian.

Young platforms in Eurasia occupy large areas. The largest of them are West Siberia and Turan. Their foundation, whose age is several hundred million years, lies at great depths. That is, these platforms were formed at the end of the Paleozoic

era.

When the lithospheric plates converge or disagree along their boundaries, folding, volcanism and earthquakes occurred. As a result of this, giant folding belts of Eurasia emerged, within which tall mountains and deep hollows alternate. In the central part of the continent between the platform areas lies the ancient Ural-Mongolian belt, within which active mountain building took place in the Paleozoic era. Young seismically active belts continue to form in the south and east of Eurasia – Alpisko-Himalayan and Pacific. Numerous earthquakes occur in their borders. Recently, devastating earthquakes have occurred in Armenia in the Caucasus, in Turkey on the Peninsula of Asia Minor, in Indonesia on the Great Sunda Islands. They claimed the lives of tens and hundreds of thousands of people. It is to the young belts of folding that the active volcanoes are confined: Vesuvius. Etna, Klyuchevskaya Sopka, Fujiyama, Krakatau.

On the border of lithospheric plates is the island of Iceland. This island with the oceanic type of the earth’s crust is the upper parts of the North Atlantic mid-ridge protruding above the water. Due to the divergence of lithospheric plates, fissure type volcanoes were formed on the island. The largest of these is Hekla. Volcanism is accompanied by the emergence of hot springs and geysers.


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The structure of the Earth’s crust of Eurasia