Reproduced from Handbuch der Geophysik with permission by Gebrueder Borntraeger.

In the world map below are outlined the mountain ranges formed during the Alpine orogenesis. New mountains are formed at the same time in different parts of the world during a relatively short time in geological terms, in less than a million years.

Accompanying mountain formation are several mechanisms that foster cooling of the atmosphere and the earth’s crust, so that the temperature drops sufficiently to freeze most of the water on the continents. This produced mile high glaciers spread over all continents, including tropical regions. This fact cannot be explained by any theory that depends solely on atmospheric cooling. When there were glaciers in Africa, there were other regions to the north which were free of ice. Also, on the American continent the glaciers moved from west to east, instead of from north to south. These and other facts indicate that the cooling proceeded according to the relaxation of the crust where mountains formed.

The increased volcanic activity during mountain formation also contributes to atmospheric cooling. Once the land is covered with snow and ice, much of the sun light is reflected back into space, which in turn speeds up the cooling and accumulation of ice.

Since the oceans do not freeze, the evaporated water is moved in clouds over the continents where it is deposited as snow, which then compacts into ice. Thus, water is not returned to the oceans in rivers, and therefore, the ocean level drops during an ice age.

Notice that the volume of mountain material is globally the same in all directions, which confirms the shrinking hypothesis. As the stressed crust relaxed, it had to do so evenly in all directions, leading to the equal mountain volume. Thus, the east-west Himalayas, Alps, and associated ranges, are as massive as the north-south Rockies, Andes, and the far-eastern ranges.

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