Convergent flow in a two-layer system and mountain building

TL;DR

This paper models mountain building as the convergent flow of a two-layer liquid system, deriving a nonlinear equation to predict mountain range profiles, which aligns well with real-world data.

Contribution

It introduces a novel two-layer flow model for mountain formation, deriving and solving a nonlinear differential equation to predict mountain range profiles.

Findings

Derived a nonlinear differential equation for crust evolution.

Obtained a self-similar solution with scaling laws.

Theoretical profiles match real mountain belt data.

Abstract

With the purpose of modelling the process of mountain building, we investigate the evolution of the ridge produced by the convergent motion of a system consisting of two layers of liquids that differ in density and viscosity to simulate the crust and the upper mantle that form a lithospheric plate. We assume that the motion is driven by basal traction. Assuming isostasy, we derive a nonlinear differential equation for the evolution of the thickness of the crust. We solve this equation numerically to obtain the profile of the range. We find an approximate self-similar solution that describes reasonably well the process and predicts simple scaling laws for the height and width of the range as well as the shape of the transversal profile. We compare the theoretical results with the profiles of real mountain belts and find and excellent agreement.