Mountain Building: A Study Primarily Based on Indonesia Region of the World’s Most Active Crustal Deformations

In this age of scientific research the process of mountain building has proved to be of the greatest interest, as mountain building provides the very basis of our existence on earth. The fact that there is still land, is due to the enormous stores of energy inside the earth, which raises again and again landmasses above sealevel. If this endogenic energy were no more active, the always working processes striving after the hydrostatic equilibrium would become impossible. However, during the earth's life history of more than 3000 million years the lands have been rejuvenated by uplifts which culminate in mountain chains.
In the present work the author expounds conceptions about mountain building, which he developed under the name of "undation theory" in the course of more than twenty years of research. He points out that the process of mountain building is actuated primarily by plutonic forces and characterized in later evolution by gravity thrust that may have appreciable lateral components.
The first part of this book contains a general statement concerning the principles of mountain building, and is followed by a description of the evolution of mountain belts and associate geological phenomena in the Indonesia region. This area offers one of the best opportunities in the world for elucidation of various phenomena associated with mountain building, such as volcanism, earthquakes and gravity anomalies. In Indonesia mountain building is in progress at the present moment, and the evidence organized by the author shows that in this region similar mountain building has proceeded in pulsatory manner and laterally shifting placement throughout the last 200 million years or more of the earth history. Accordingly, the concisely written description of Indonesian geology presented in this volume has worldwide interest, because conclusions derived from it have application to mountain building in other parts of the globe in the past and in the present.
Viewed in this way, it is highly desirable that the author's picture of interrelated causes and processes controlling the evolution of mountains should be very widely known. Therefore, this book is recommended strongly for thoughtful study of geologists everywhere.