Mountain Ranges, Deserts and Landforms of Afghanistan

Geology and geological history

The geological history of the Tibetan Plateau is closely related to that of the Himalayas. The Himalayas belong to the Alpine orogeny and are among the younger mountain ranges on the planet, consisting mostly of uplifted sedimentary and metamorphic rock. Their formation is a result of a continental collision or orogeny along the convergent boundary between the Indo-Australian plate and the Eurasian plate.

India began drifting northward from Gondwana in the Upper Cretaceous, about 70 million years ago (Mya), moving at about 15 cm (6 in) per year; its collision with the Eurasian plate is most commonly dated to around 55–50 Mya, near the Paleocene–Eocene boundary, though the exact timing remains debated.

Human history

Archaic Denisovans lived on the plateau from around 200,000 to 40,000 years ago, according to a study published in Nature. Archaeological evidence suggests that the earliest human occupation of the plateau occurred between 30,000 and 40,000 years ago.

Since the plateau's earliest settlement, Tibetan culture has adapted and flourished in the western, southern, and eastern regions. The Changtang is generally too high and cold to support permanent population. The Tibetan Empire existed from the 7th century to the 9th century AD. Nomadic pastoralism, once practiced widely across Asia and Africa, has persisted among these communities on the plateau. Pastoral nomads constitute about 40% of the ethnic Tibetan population.

Description

The Tibetan Plateau is surrounded by the massive mountain ranges of high-mountain Asia. The plateau is bordered to the south by the inner Himalayan range, to the north by the Kunlun Mountains which separate it from the Tarim Basin, and to the northeast by the Qilian Mountains, which separate it from the Hexi Corridor and Gobi Desert. To the east and southeast are the Salween, Mekong, and Yangtze rivers in northwest Yunnan, western Sichuan, and southwest Qinghai. In the west, the rugged Karakoram range of northern Kashmir curves around the plateau's edge. The Indus River originates in the western Tibetan Plateau in the vicinity of Lake Manasarovar.

Geography and relation to Xinjiang

Xinjiang consists of two main geographically, historically, and ethnically distinct regions with different historical names, Dzungaria and the Tarim Basin (Altishahr), until it was merged into the Chinese Province of Xinjiang in 1884. At the time of the Qing conquest in 1759, Dzungaria was inhabited by steppe-dwelling, nomadic Mongolic Buddhist Dzungars, while the Tarim Basin (Altishahr) was inhabited by sedentary, oasis-dwelling, Turkic-speaking Uyghur Muslim peasants. Dzungaria and the Tarim Basin were each governed separately until the creation of Xinjiang province.

The Chinese called this the Tien Shan Nan Lu or Tien Shan South Road, as opposed to the Bei Lu north of the mountains. Along it runs the modern highway and railroad while the middle Tarim River is about 100 km south.

Geology

The Tarim Basin is the result of an amalgamation between an ancient microcontinent and the growing Eurasian continent during the Carboniferous to Permian periods, a process which ended in the earliest Triassic with the closure of the Palaeo-Asian Ocean. At present, deformation around the margins of the basin is resulting in the microcontinental crust being pushed under Tian Shan to the north, and Kunlun Shan to the south.

A thick succession of Paleozoic, Mesozoic and Cenozoic sedimentary rocks occupy the central parts of the basin, locally exceeding thicknesses of 15 km (9 mi). The source rocks of oil and gas tend to be mostly Permian mudstones and, less often, Ordovician strata which experienced an intense and widespread early Hercynian karstification.

History

It is speculated that the Tarim Basin may be one of the last places in Asia to have become inhabited: It is surrounded by mountains and irrigation technologies might have been necessary.

The Northern Silk Road on one route bypassed the Tarim Basin north of the Tian Shan mountains and traversed it on three oases-dependent routes: one north of the Taklamakan Desert, one south, and a middle one connecting both through the Lop Nur region.

The northern Tarim route ran from Kashgar via Aksu, Kucha, Korla, through the Iron Gate Pass, then Karasahr, Jiaohe, Turpan, Gaochang and Kumul to Anxi.

The southern Tarim route ran from Kashgar through Yarkant, Karghalik, Pishan, Khotan, Keriya, Niya, Qarqan, Qarkilik, Miran and Dunhuang to Anxi.

History

Although Balochistan was inhabited by a variety of people, Baloch people did not migrate to the region until the 14th century. Balochistan is among the earliest human settlements in the world, and the oldest evidence of human occupation in it is dated to the Paleolithic era. Evidence includes hunting camps, lithic scatter, and chipped and flaked stone tools. The earliest settled villages in the region date to the ceramic Neolithic (c. 7000–6000 BCE) and include the site of Mehrgarh in the Kachi Plain, which may make Balochistan the oldest civilisation in the world.

These villages expanded in size during the subsequent Chalcolithic when interaction was amplified. This involved the movement of finished goods and raw materials, including chank shell, lapis lazuli, turquoise, and ceramics.

Geography

The range forms the western section of the Hindu Kush Himalayan Region (HKH) and is the westernmost extension of the Pamir Mountains, the Karakoram and the Himalayas. It divides the valley of the Amu Darya (the ancient Oxus) to the north from the Indus River valley to the south. The range has numerous high snow-capped peaks, with the highest point being Tirich Mir or Terichmir at 7,708 metres (25,289 ft) in the Chitral District of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Pakistan. To the north, near its northeastern end, the Hindu Kush buttresses the Pamir Mountains near the point where the borders of China, Pakistan and Afghanistan meet, after which it runs southwest through Pakistan and into Afghanistan near their border. The eastern end of the Hindu Kush in the north merges with the Karakoram Range.

Geology

Geologically, the range is rooted in the formation of the subcontinent from a region of Gondwana that drifted away from East Africa about 160 million years ago, around the Middle Jurassic period. The Indian subcontinent, Australia and islands of the Indian Ocean rifted further, drifting northeastwards, with the Indian subcontinent colliding with the Eurasian Plate nearly 55 million years ago, towards the end of Palaeocene. This collision gradually formed the Himalayas, including the Hindu Kush.

The Hindu Kush are a part of the "young Eurasian mountain range consisting of metamorphic rocks such as schist, gneiss and marble, as well as of intrusives such as granite, diorite of different age and size".

Climate change

The 2019 Hindu Kush Himalaya Assessment concluded that between 1901 and 2014, the Hindu Kush Himalaya (or HKH) region had already experienced warming of 0.1 °C per decade, with the warming rate accelerating to 0.2 °C per decade over the past 50 years. Over the past 50 years, the frequency of warm days and nights had also increased by 1.2 days and 1.7 nights per decade, while the frequency of extreme warm days and nights had increased by 1.26 days and 2.54 nights per decade. There was also a corresponding decline of 0.5 cold days, 0.85 extreme cold days, 1 cold night, and 2.4 extreme cold nights per decade. The length of the growing season has increased by 4.25 days per decade.

History

The high altitudes of the mountains have historical significance in South and Central Asia. The Hindu Kush range was a major center of Buddhism with sites such as the Bamiyan Buddhas. It has also been the passageway during the invasions of the Indian subcontinent, a region where the Taliban and al-Qaeda grew, and a scene of modern era warfare in Afghanistan. Ancient mines producing lapis lazuli are found in Kowkcheh Valley, while gem-grade emeralds are found north of Kabul in the valley of the Panjsher River and some of its tributaries.

Geography

The three highest mountains in the Pamirs core are Ismoil Somoni Peak (known from 1932 to 1962 as Stalin Peak, and from 1962 to 1998 as Communism Peak), 7,495 m (24,590 ft); Ibn Sina Peak (still officially known as Lenin Peak in Kyrgyzstan), 7,134 m (23,406 ft); and Peak Korzhenevskaya (Russian: Пик Корженевская, Pik Korzhenevskoi), 7,105 m (23,310 ft). In the Eastern Pamirs, China's Kongur Tagh is the highest at 7,649 m (25,095 ft).

Remark: The summits of the Kongur and Muztagata Group are in some sources counted as part of the Kunlun, which would make Peak Ismoil Somoni the highest summit of the Pamir.

There are many glaciers in the Pamir Mountains, including the 77 km (48 mi) long Vanch-Yakh Glacier, the longest in the former USSR and the longest glacier outside the polar regions.

Tourism

In December 2009, the New York Times featured articles on the possibilities for tourism in the Pamir area of Tajikistan. 2013 proved to be the most successful year ever for tourism in the region and tourism development continues to be the fastest growing economic sector.

Geography

The Sulaiman Range extends from the Kandahar, Zabul and Paktia provinces in Afghanistan across Waziristan and Kurram districts of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, northern Balochistan, and southwestern Punjab in Pakistan. In Afghanistan, the western edge of the range starts just beyond the northern Paktia province where they meet the Koh-i-Baba range. South from there, they meet the Spin Ghar range northeast of Gardez in Paktia province, but towards west, the mountain range drops gradually in Kandahar southwest into Helmand and the Sistan Basin.

In Punjab the mountains extend into the Dera Ghazi Khan, Taunsa and Rajanpur districts, located west of the Indus River on the boundary with Balochistan.

Geology

The Sulaimans were formed as a fold and thrust belt as the Indian Plate collided into Eurasian Plate beginning about 30 million years ago. The Indian Plate's counter-clockwise rotation as it collided with the Eurasian Plate resulted in the Sulaimans having some of the most complex tectonic structures in the world, including "stacking" of thrust faults. The complex fault-system is capable of producing doublet earthquakes that jump to other faults — such as the 1997 Harnai earthquake in which a magnitude 7.1 earthquake triggered a 6.8 earthquake 19 seconds later on a second fault 50 kilometres away.

Areas in the southern part of the range include an Imbricate fan of slices of rocks in close parallel, bounded by faults on either side of each slice.

Geography and key features

The Himalayas consists of four parallel mountain ranges from south to north: the Sivalik Hills on the south; the Lower Himalayan Range; the Great Himalayas, which is the highest and central range; and the Tibetan Himalayas on the north. The Karakoram are generally considered separate from the Himalayas.

In the middle of the great curve of the Himalayan mountains lie the 8,000 m (26,000-foot) peaks of Dhaulagiri and Annapurna in Nepal, separated by the Kali Gandaki Gorge. The gorge splits the Himalayas into Western and Eastern sections, both ecologically and orographically – the pass at the head of the Kali Gandaki, the Kora La, is the lowest point on the ridgeline between Everest and K2 (the highest peak of the Karakoram range).

Geology

Tectonics, the recurring physical changes that affect the arrangement of the Earth's crust, and plate tectonics, the movement of large regions of the Earth's crust in the manner of planar rigid bodies, are key to understanding the formation of the Himalayas. The Earth's crust rests directly on its mantle. Tectonic plates, comprising the crust and the upper portions of their underlying mantle, are moved around by convection in the asthenosphere. The oceanic crust, found beneath oceans, is, on average, seven kilometres (4.3 mi) thick. It is created from upwelling magma at mid-ocean ridges and predominantly consists of basalt, the principal igneous rock on Earth.

Climate

The physical factors determining the climate in any location in the Himalayas include latitude, altitude, and the relative motion of the Southwest monsoon. From north to south, the mountains cover more than eight degrees of latitude, spanning temperate to subtropical zones. The colder air of Central Asia is prevented from blowing down into South Asia by the physical configuration of the Himalayas. This causes the tropical zone to extend farther north in South Asia than anywhere else in the world. The evidence is unmistakable in the Brahmaputra valley as the warm air from the Bay of Bengal bottlenecks and rushes up past Namcha Barwa, the eastern anchor of the Himalayas, and into southeastern Tibet.

Ecology

The flora and fauna of the Himalayas vary with climate, rainfall, altitude, and soils. The climate ranges from tropical at the base of the mountains to permanent ice and snow at the highest elevations. The amount of yearly rainfall increases from west to east along the southern front of the range. This diversity of altitude, rainfall, and soil conditions, combined with the very high snow line, supports a variety of distinct plant and animal communities. The extremes of high altitude (low atmospheric pressure), combined with extreme cold, favor extremophile organisms.

At high altitudes, the elusive and previously endangered snow leopard is the main predator.