Plate Tectonics and Mountain Building

One of the greatest strengths of the modern plate tectonics theory is its ability to explain the origin of virtually all of the present and most ancient mountain belts on Earth. In other words, mountain building (orogeny) stands in strong causal interrelation with the global plate drift pattern. The motor of orogeny is subduction. To enable subduction, a basin floored by oceanic crust must be present. The process of orogeny becomes initiated by subduction of ocean floor and finds its climax in the collision of continents and island arcs.