Leonardo da Vinci

If the crust has more mass with the thick sediment layers getting deposited or with the formation of vast glaciers, then it sinks down into the mantle until they obtain equilibrium. If the load is decreased by erosion or melting of ice, then the crust gradually rises by isostatic rebound.

Clarence Dutton

The role of mountain as stabilizer is proved when scientific research found that mountain’s root helps in reducing the speed of lithosphere thus decreasing the impact. The process of isostasy helps to maintain the stability of the earth by maintaining the mountain position. the mountain on tectonic plate.

According to the research of Professor Mark van der Meijde, mountains influence the impact of earthquakes. Mountains can reduce the power of quakes, but also direct them to certain places, making them more powerful than expected.

The most important point is that mountains have buoyant roots that extend downward into the mantle beneath a mountain range, and that the roots are, in general, about 5.6 times deeper than the height of the range. This result reflects the difference between the densities of average crust and mantle.

Mountains really do not have any effect on the stability of the earth, it is the movement of the tectonic plates, which incidentally form the mountains that affect it. Earth is made up of three main layers; the very thin, brittle crust, the mantle and the core.

Mountains, Airy said, exert less gravitational pull than they should do because they have roots. Their less dense material extends down into the planet, in whose denser interior they float like icebergs in water.

Isostasy is the rising or settling of a portion of the Earth’s lithosphere that occurs when weight is removed or added in order to maintain equilibrium between buoyancy forces that push the lithosphere upward, and gravity forces that pull the lithosphere downward.

When erosion at the surface removes mass, isostasy responds by lifting the entire mountain range up to replace about 80 percent of the mass removed. This uplift explains a number of phenomena that were puzzling before researchers fully appreciated the role of feedback in mountain building.

The Airy hypothesis says that Earth’s crust is a more rigid shell floating on a more liquid substratum of greater density. Sir George Biddell Airy, an English mathematician and astronomer, assumed that the crust has a uniform density throughout.

The movement of the solid part of the earth until it is in balance; also called isostatic compensation. The prime example of isostatic adjustment is the continents “floating” on the denser parts of the crust.

: the deficiency of mass in the earth’s crust below sea level that exactly balances the mass above sea level.

What is isostasy, and what does it indicate about a floating object that has a weight added or removed? Isostasy is the concept that Earth’s crust is floating within the mantle in gravitational balance. Thus, if weight is added, the crust would sink until it reached a new isostatic balance.

List the four major features of subduction zones….Terms in this set (30)

• Oceanic lithosphere goes under the oceanic plate.
• Scraped sediments accumulate on upper plates.
• Igneous and metamorphic rocks form mountainous topography.