Blue Mountains, Australia
                      (...The misnomer of 'mountain building'...)

 

Who remembers the good old days (Grampaw?) when mountains were just high bits of ground?  At least, higher than everywhere else.  Which was funny when you thought about it, ...because how come?   How did it happen that great chunks of land were higher than everywhere else?  And when you thought about it mountains were not really mountains at all, but just wot was left when there wuz valleys.  And you got valleys when it rained.    And that was what *really* made them pointy and steep (The mountains.)  The valleys.  Well, ... the rain,  ...those fluffy clouds up there, ..  condensation, ..evaporation, .. sun, ..wind, .. weather, .. climate, ..  change, ..

(Then there wuz Geolorgie... And Plate Tectonics)

"Now, ..WaaAit a Miiiinute!  What are we talking about here?  The mountains or the valleys?"
"NawwwWww, ....rain,  ....weather, climate,  ...erosion,  ...global warming,  ..grass growing and slowing mountain uplift.. ..   Sea level. ... "
"Sea Level?  Is the sea level?   I thought it was round like the Earth."
"Yeah, ....Gravity.   It's been level for ever.  Ever since the planet."
"Yeah?"
"Yeah....  Well, ... sort of, ...it's kind of like,  up and down all over the place.   That's why its level.  At least, that's why we say it's level."
"Yeah?"
"Yeah, ... an' you get fossils everywhere, showing every so often the sea comes up and swamps the land.  ..I mean levels the land."
"Gee, . How?  Does it really rain that fast?"
"Yeah, ..  Forty days and forty nights.  It's true."

"...Since the sediments were lightweight, instead of sinking along with the plate, they crumpled into mountain ranges—the Himalayas..."
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/everest/earth/birth.html

(..View the crumpling..)

 

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