Mount Kinabalu at SunriseThis magnificent shadow is cast by Mount Kinabalu at sunrise. Kinabalu form

Mount Kinabalu at SunriseThis magnificent shadow is cast by Mount Kinabalu at sunrise. Kinabalu forms the heart of Kinabalu National Park, in the nation of Malaysia on the island of Borneo. It was Malaysia’s first national park, established in 1964, and is a UNESCO World Heritage site. At 4095 meters (its total height), the peak has the 20th largest prominence (elevation above the surroundings) of any peak in the world.Just from its shape you can immediately tell this peak has not been carved in the same way as many other sharp, glacially reworked mountains around the world. Kinabalu’s life began about 7.8 million years ago due to igneous processes. A series of granodiorite to granite composition magmas began intruding into surrounding sedimentary rocks in this part of the world, reaching levels where they were neutrally buoyant and pushing the rocks above them upward into a dome. Several different pulses of this magma arrived over a period of 600,000 years and each pulse formed a layer at the bottom of the previous layer, building up an oval-shaped feature with a domed top, resembling the shape geologists call a “laccolith”.Geochemical and geophysical investigations of this area suggest that this peak originated in the complicated tectonics of this part of the Pacific, where small sections of plates are subducting and fracturing. As one chunk of one of these slabs was dragged into the mantle, it took part of the crust of the surrounding continent with it and that crust melted once exposed to the heat of the mantle, giving the initial pulse of magma. Continued melting from the sinking slab caused the surrounding plate to begin melting, contributing the later layers.Finally, that sinking slab either rolled back or even snapped off completely. The weight of that sinking piece of crust was, at the time, dragging the whole area down; once it broke off the overlying crust popped up and began eroding rapidly. Geological evidence suggests this granodiorite cooled at depth by about 7.2 million years ago and then it was rapidly uplifted to near the surface by about 5 million years ago.Despite being in the tropics, the peak was glaciated during the Pleistocene and glaciers helped carve the jagged peaks in the granodiorite at its summit.-JBBImage credit: http://bit.ly/1TuqvtyReferences:http://bit.ly/1MJd6c8http://jgs.lyellcollection.org/content/170/5/805.shorthttp://jgs.lyellcollection.org/content/167/1/49.shorthttp://abt.cm/1TuqxS7 -- source link

More pics about