Scientists may have just toppled a 100-year-old theory about what holds up the highest mountain range on Earth, new research shows.
The Himalayan mountains formed in the collision between the Asian and Indian continents around 50 million years ago, when tectonic forces squeezed Tibet so hard that the region crumpled and its area shrank by almost 620 miles (1,000 kilometers). The Indian tectonic plate eventually slipped under the Eurasian plate, doubling the thickness of Earth's crust beneath the Himalayas and Tibetan Plateau to the north, and contributing to their uplift.
