World Geography / Topography
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There four types of mountains in the world namely, Fold mountains, Block or Fault-Block mountains, Volcanic mountains and Residual or Relict mountains. The formation of mountains takes place due to the processes like orogeny, vertical displacement of large areas, volcanic activities, etc.
A mountain is a kind of landform where there is natural elevation on the surface of the earth. It is generally narrow at its top and wide at its base. The four types of mountains are mentiioned below
Formation of Fold mountains takes place by a process called orogeny. These mountains take their form when collision of tectonic
plates occurs at their boundaries. When the tectonic plates and the continents above them collide with each other, the accumulated layers
of rock get folded forming these types of mountains.
Most of the mountains are of fold mountains. High mountain ranges are mainly fold
type. The Himalayas, The Alps, The Andes, etc. are the examples of fold mountains.
When a big area is broken and vertically displaced, Fault-Block or Block Mountains are created. Here, the displaced lower block is called
Graben and the intact higher block is called Horst. Horst forms a mountain, whereas Graben regions form valleys.
Faulting also involves some horizontal displacement. Some of the examples of Block mountains are Vindhya and Satpura ranges, Rhine
valley, etc.
A mountain that is formed because of volcanic activity is known as Volcanic mountain. Some of the examples of Volcanic mountains are Mt Kilimanjaro, Mt Vesuvius, Mt Fujiyama, etc.
These types of mountains are also called Circum-erosional mountains. Relict mountains are the remnants of a tabular region or old fold mountains and are derived because of extensive erosion. Examples of Residual Mountains are Aravalli mountains, Ural mountains of Russia, etc.