Himalayas
The mountain range between India and Tibet, raised by the ongoing collision of the Indian and Eurasian plates since about 50 million years ago.
Continental collision: The welding of two continental landmasses when ocean floor between them is fully consumed. The specific plate-boundary process that raised the Himalayas and still shortens Asia today.
Asian monsoon: The seasonal wind reversal bringing summer rain to South and East Asia, driven partly by Himalayan–Tibetan heating. The range and plateau create the thermal and barrier effects that power the monsoon.
Mount Everest: Earth's highest summit at 8,849 meters, capped by marine limestone of the former Tethys seafloor. Its summit rock formed under an ocean, the clearest evidence of the collision.
Great Trigonometrical Survey: The 19th-century British survey that measured India and computed Himalayan peak heights. Its triangulation produced the first accurate elevation of Everest, then Peak XV.
Andes: A mountain belt built by oceanic plate subduction beneath a continent, not by continent–continent collision. Volcanic and arc-built where the Himalayas are crustal rock stacked without volcanism.
Tethys Ocean: The ancient ocean separating India from Eurasia before the collision; its floor is now preserved in the range. Its vanished seafloor became the ophiolites and marine limestones now high in the mountains.
Ganges: The great river of northern India, draining the Himalayan front and building the world's largest delta. Himalayan runoff carries about a billion tonnes of sediment yearly to the Gangetic plain.
Kangchenjunga: The world's third-highest peak at 8,586 meters, on the Nepal–Sikkim border. The eastern anchor of the range and its most massive single summit.
George Everest: Surveyor General of India whose name was given to the world's highest peak. The survey he directed fixed the geodetic framework for all Himalayan mapping.
Alps: The European collisional belt from Africa–Europe convergence, smaller and geologically more complex in collage structure. The other great continental collision, compared constantly with the Himalayan one.