Folding of mountain ranges—the argument from isostasy
Introduction The hypothesis that mountain ranges have originated from the shrinkage of the earth’s core away from its crust and from the consequent wrinkling of the crust has not met with support from geodesists in India. In 1858 Pratt’s investigations of Himalayan attraction and compensation raised serious objections, and these were subsequently strengthened by the brilliant writings of Dutton. 3 Pratt was a mathematician and Dutton was a geologist. Pratt regarded the subterranean compensation of the Himalayas as a proof that these mountains had arisen from below by the vertical expansion of rocks in the crust. But even before Pratt had published his conclusions the Himalayan geologist, Strachey, had put forward an opinion, based on geological grounds, that the origin of the Himalayas had been vertical uplift. 4 And the idea of a planetary core contracting independently of its outer shell was forcibly opposed by Osmond Fisher, also a geologist. 5 Mountain Formation . . .