Colliding Continents

The crash of the Indian plate into Asia is the biggest known collision in geological history, and it continues today. The result is the Himalaya and Karakoram - one of the largest mountain ranges on Earth. The Karakoram has half of the world's highest mountains and a reputation as being one of the most remote and savage ranges of all. In this beautifully illustrated book, Mike Searle, a geologist at the University of Oxford and one of the most experienced field geologists of our time, presents a rich account of the geological forces that were involved in creating these mountain ranges. Using his personal accounts of extreme mountaineering and research in the region, he pieces together the geological processes that formed such impressive peaks.

Mike Searle has worked for the last 30 years on the geology of the Himalaya, Karakoram, Tibet, and Southeast Asia. He combines geological field investigations with mountaineering expeditions to the greater ranges, and has published more than 130 papers in peer-reviewed journals. He is the author of Geology and Tectonics of the Karakoram Mountains (Wiley-Blackwell, 1991) and has co-edited four books for the Geological Society of London. He has published a Geological Map of the Mount Everest region, Nepal and South Tibet (2003, 2007) and has given numerous talks about the region.

- Preface - 1: Oceans and continents - 2: Continents in collision: Kashmir, Ladakh, Zanskar - 3: The dreaming spires of the Karakoram - 4: Pressure, temperature, time, and space - 5: Frozen rivers and fault lines - 6: Northwest Frontier: Kohistan, Hindu Kush, Pamirs - 7: Faces of Everest - 8: Mapping the geology of Everest and Makalu - 9: Mountains and Maoists: Annapurna, Manaslu - 10: Around the bend: Nanga Parbat, Namche Barwa - 11: Roof of the World: Tibet, Pamirs - 12: Extruding Indochina: Burma, Vietnam, Yunnan, Thailand - 13: The day the Earth shook: Sumatra-Andaman earthquake 2004 - 14: The making of Himalaya, Karakoram, and Tibetan plateau - Postscript - Acknowledgements - Appendix 1: Basics - Appendix 2: Glossary - Appendix 3: Local glossary - Appendix 4: Chronology - Notes - Index