Plate Boundaries at www.japanese-home-gardens.com

Mountains help geologists to understand plate structures and to learn more about how rocks behave when they are compressed by moving continents. Mountains also mark the positions of ancient plate boundaries in, for example, Mesozoic-Cenozoic tfrnes when great ranges such as the Himalayas were being formed. Similarly, the study ot ancient mountain ranges also reveals the sites of ancient oceans, enabling scientists to reconstruct the past geography of the planet.

If the initial clash involves a fast-moving continental plate, the folds may be thrown even higher forming much larger mountain ranges. A continental plate thrust under another tends to maintain an upward pressure, rather like a submerged cork seeking to regain the surface: in time the stationary plate is levered upwards and the attached fold mountains move with the plate. The Himalayas were formed when the northern edge of the Indian continental plate collided with and slid under the Asian plate; the Asian plate was then lifted and the world's highest mountain range was created.

Plate Glass. Louis Lucas invented the system of casting plate glass in France in 1688, and for years that country's glass workers produced the world's finest plate glass. The next important step in that field was made by Max Bicheroux, a German, who developed a machine for rolling plate glass. It was perfected shortly after World War I.