The vibrant strips covered the rainbow mountains will be hidden underground without an intense collision to create the Himalayas.
Rainbow mountain was born at the same time as the Himalayas. Image: Empty to
Rainbow mountains in China are colorful mountains in the Northwest of the country. The landscape in the region is like another world, with many vivid colors that look like spraying paint on rocky mountains.
Rainbow mountain is located in the rugged Lien Son range, most likely to form the same period as the Himalayas, about 50 million years ago, according to NASA’s Earth Observatory. The relatively flat land was crushed and folded into undulating terrain when the Indian tectonic array crashed into the Eurasian array. This is because these two tectonic areas have similar stone density, so they do not slide down each other to form a sinking zone, according to the US Geological Survey (USGS).
But the origin of rainbow patterns has existed for a long time before the spectacular collision. Rainbow mountains are made up of sandstone and dough, sedimentary stone formed when sand and muddy are compressed and connected together for a long time. This stone with many different colors deposits before the Himalayas is formed.
The colorful range is the result of iron and many other minerals in the stone. Each color range has its own structure that determines its color. For example, the dark red strip is rich in iron oxide, the yellow range contains abundant silfide iron and green strips contain more chlorite and silicate iron. Iron and other minerals accumulated in rocks when sand and muddy grains are still sticking together. The groundwater circulates in the pore between particles that deposit mineral minerals, cover each seed and help the stone closer.
The tilted color strip crosses the hip of the rainbow mountain today, the rock layers are pushed up. They will be buried and horizontal if the Indian and Eurasian arrays do not crash together. Following the extrusion of the land caused by tectonic segments is intense erosion, erasing any sediments covered with colored rocks. Rainbow mountain today is an area protected in Truong Dich Dan Geological Park in Gansu province.