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Name:“Folded rocks " of the Aladaghlar Mountains
Location : Northwest Iran
Iran’s folded rocks are millions of years old, having formed when the Eurasian and Arabian tectonic plates collided. Satellite image from 2023.
Coordinates:37.126276036681965 , 47.61930020667193
Why it ’s unbelievable : The landscape looks crumpled and folded from above .
Iran ’s folded rock-and-roll are rugged mountain rooftree and valleys to the southwest of the Caspian Sea . They are an filename extension of the Greater Caucasus passel belt , which also stretches along Russia ’s borderline with Georgia and Azerbaijan .
Iran’s folded rocks captured with a satellite in 2025. The green line curving down from the top of the image is the Qezel Ozan River. Towards the top of the image, a line cutting through the folded rocks shows the Zanjan-Tabriz freeway (Freeway 2).
The folded John Rock sit at the intersection of Asia and Europe , where majortectonic forcesconverge . The rock’n’roll are formed of countless aqueous layers , which were upturned and crease into the landscape we see today during the initial collision between the Arabian and Eurasiatic tectonic collection plate . The timing of this collision is hotly debated , withestimatesranging from 10 million to 50 million age ago .
" A tectonic hit between Eurasia and Arabia over millions of years compressed these colorful rock level , bending them into big folds,“NASAofficialswrote on the social program Xin January 2024 .
The Arabian and Eurasian plates arestill converging , and late enquiry show a clump of oceanic insolence that separated the two crustal plate before they collided isnow being snap apart under Iraq and Iran . The Neotethys oceanic plate come out to be pulling the region down from below , resulting in an unusual accrual of sediment at the Earth’s surface .
Related : North America is ' dripping ' down into Earth ’s mantle , scientist find
Iran ’s close up Rock are colorful , with vivacious terracotta , greenish and blueish bands that are the event of dissimilar aqueous layer deposited over clip . These layers were eroded over zillion of years after the initial tectonic collision , exposing the underlying rocks ' alternating colors and textures .
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Satellite images of the turn up rock reveal the extent to which the landscape painting was bundle together over the eons . scientist at NASA ’s Jet Propulsion Laboratorycolored one such imagewith infrared to show the various rock and roll bed , as well as vegetation and the human - built Zanjan - Tabriz superhighway , which cuts through the turn up Rock and connect the cities of Tehran and Tabriz .
Another satellite image fromNASA ’s Earth Observatoryhighlights the intricacy of Earth ’s open in this region and shows the Qezel Ozan River , which bosom the southeast corner of the shut down rocks and supplies water for agriculture in the area .
observe moreincredible blank space , where we highlight the fantastic chronicle and science behind some of the most spectacular landscape painting on Earth .
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