Asia is both the largest and youngest of Earth’s continents. Most of the Asian continent is part of the Eurasian Plate together with Europe, other parts belong to other Plates. The Arabian Peninsula is not included in Asia in plate tectonic context. Follow Abbreviationfinder for Asia acronyms. According to Countryaah, Asia is divided into 6 regions: North Asia, Central Asia, East Asia, Southeast Asia, South Asia and West Asia.
Asia farthest north has more than 1900-3500 million. year old Precambrian continents, Angara. The bedrock is here exposed in a smaller area to the north, the Anabar Shield, and in the Aldan massif to the southeast. The crust of the rest of the Asian continent, over three-quarters of the continent, has been added over the last $ 700 million. years, because young and old crustal areas have been united with Angara in so-called growth belts.
This growth has not ceased; new crust is formed by the tectonically and seismically active archipelago systems in Southeast and East Asia. The plate boundaries are marked here by ocean depths (” deep sea tombs”), where oceanic lithospheric plate sinks in and in the so-called subduction zones is submerged below the arches to 650-700 km depth. It is the tectonic and magmatic processes in these zones that produce new continental crust; is stacked in a thick brim in front of the archipelago, and partly by the fact that magma that rises below the archipelago solidifies as deep rocks or volcanic lava and ash. Contemporary seabed diversion south of Australia thus leads this continent on a collision course against Timor and other islands in Indonesia, and Australia is therefore expected to be united with Asia – as is New Guinea, which is now being pushed from east into eastern Indonesia.
The older growth belts in the Asian mainland also developed plate tectonically, and while they formed, changing plate movements led Asia far and wide on the globe. When the Bajkalids were added for 700-540 million. years ago, Angara was at 20 ° -40 °C.br. and collided here with a pre-existing archipelago system. The next growth belt, the Altaids, was added as Asia reached its north of the equator during its operation. The Altaids are made up of earlier archipelago systems, which were united with Asia during the Paleozoic period until Younger Carbon. Their very complicated structures are due to the arches being jammed when they were added to Asia. They were twisted, collapsed and displaced, and the sediment layers were folded and pierced by new magma rocks.
Country | Life expectancy (years) | Life expectancy for women (years) | Life expectancy for men (years) |
Afghanistan | 64 (2018) | 66 (2018) | 63 (2018) |
Bahrain | 77 (2018) | 78 (2018) | 76 (2018) |
Bangladesh | 72 (2018) | 74 (2018) | 71 (2018) |
Bhutan | 71 (2018) | 72 (2018) | 71 (2018) |
Brunei | 76 (2018) | 77 (2018) | 75 (2018) |
Burma | 67 (2018) | 70 (2018) | 64 (2018) |
Philippines | 71 (2018) | 75 (2018) | 67 (2018) |
United Arab Emirates | 78 (2018) | 79 (2018) | 77 (2018) |
India | 69 (2018) | 71 (2018) | 68 (2018) |
Indonesia | 72 (2018) | 74 (2018) | 69 (2018) |
Iraq | 70 (2018) | 72 (2018) | 68 (2018) |
Iran | 76 (2018) | 78 (2018) | 75 (2018) |
Israel | 83 (2018) | 85 (2018) | 81 (2018) |
Japan | 84 (2018) | 87 (2018) | 81 (2018) |
Yemen | 66 (2018) | 68 (2018) | 64 (2018) |
Jordan | 74 (2018) | 76 (2018) | 73 (2018) |
Cambodia | 70 (2018) | 72 (2018) | 67 (2018) |
Kazakhstan | 73 (2018) | 77 (2018) | 69 (2018) |
China | 77 (2018) | 79 (2018) | 75 (2018) |
Kyrgyzstan | 71 (2018) | 76 (2018) | 67 (2018) |
Kuwait | 75 (2018) | 76 (2018) | 75 (2018) |
Laos | 68 (2018) | 69 (2018) | 66 (2018) |
Lebanon | 79 (2018) | 81 (2018) | 77 (2018) |
Malaysia | 76 (2018) | 78 (2018) | 74 (2018) |
Maldives | 79 (2018) | 80 (2018) | 77 (2018) |
Mongolia | 70 (2018) | 74 (2018) | 66 (2018) |
Nepal | 70 (2018) | 72 (2018) | 69 (2018) |
North Korea | – | – | – |
Oman | 78 (2018) | 80 (2018) | 76 (2018) |
Pakistan | 67 (2018) | 68 (2018) | 66 (2018) |
Qatar | 80 (2018) | 82 (2018) | 79 (2018) |
Saudi Arabia | 75 (2018) | 77 (2018) | 74 (2018) |
Singapore | 83 (2018) | 85 (2018) | 81 (2018) |
Sri Lanka | 77 (2018) | 80 (2018) | 73 (2018) |
South Korea | 83 (2018) | 86 (2018) | 80 (2018) |
Syria | 72 (2018) | 78 (2018) | 67 (2018) |
Tajikistan | 71 (2018) | 73 (2018) | 69 (2018) |
Taiwan | – | – | – |
Thailand | 77 (2018) | 81 (2018) | 73 (2018) |
Turkmenistan | 68 (2018) | 72 (2018) | 65 (2018) |
Uzbekistan | 72 (2018) | 74 (2018) | 69 (2018) |
Vietnam | 75 (2018) | 79 (2018) | 71 (2018) |
East Timor | 69 (2018) | 71 (2018) | 67 (2018) |
For 300 million years ago, Asia collided with Europe. This was super continent Pangea, which included Gondwana. Asia and Europe were firmly welded during the collision in the Uralids, whose western part is now raised as the Ural Mountains. At the gathering of Pangaea, a Precambrian massif from Gondwana, Serindia, was added to the south of the Altaids. Pangaea was already suffering from rupture and rift zones, when it for 240-150 million. years ago in Trias and Jura was divided into several continents and plates. Asia thereby became part of the Eurasian Plate. At the same time, a large secluded sediment basin developed in the western Siberian lowlands. Here, fresh and brackish water deposits with an exceptionally high organic content were deposited, which now, after just over DKK 100 million. years of storage, is ripe for hydrocarbons and forms some of the world’s largest oil and gas deposits.
The youngest growth zone, the Tethysides, was developed along the southern and eastern edges of the Eurasian Plate over the past 250 million. year. Seabed dispersal in the oceans south and east of the Eurasian Plate brought island arcs and small and large continental fragments from the disintegrated Pangaea to Asia. The old continent pieces came from the African part of Gondwanaland and from a now completely fragmented continent area, Cathysia, located north of Australia. In Northeast Asia, crust from the North American Plate was added.
The “alien” arches and continental fragments in the Tethysides were linked by chimeric and alpine mountain ranges, folded in the Triassic-Elder Cretaceous and in the younger Cretaceous-Tertiary respectively. The kimmeric collisions affected the nearby parts of the Altaids, where The Tien Shan Mountains were pushed up to the north, so deep-buried oil shales in the Late Permian-Mesozoic Junggar Basin were raised and slightly folded, creating rich oil and gas fields in the basins of the basin.
During India’s north drift away from Madagascar, early Tertiary volcanic eruptions occurred, forming Deccan’s plateau basins on top of the worn-out bedrock and rift zones filled with Permian-Mesozoic sediments. For DKK 50-45 million Years ago, India’s wide northern shelf collided with Asia, and India has since been pushed like a ram’s book further and further north into the Eurasian Plate. The shelf was thus permeated by surpluses and piled up in the Himalayan mountain range south of the Indus-Tsangpo suture, where remains of oceanic crust and a squeezed archipelago are preserved. While the Himalayas raised, the rivers led the degradation material south. It now meets the depths of the Indo-Gangetic Plains and forms two major depositional cones that extend far into the Arabian Sea and the Bay of Bengal. During the Himalayan uplift, a total of 20 million is estimated. km 3 to have been removed by the erosion.
The collision and India’s persistent north drift in the Younger Tertiary and Quaternary brought India about 4000 km closer to Angara. The crust of the Indus-Tsangpo suture and the Tibetan highlands became unusually thick, 65-80 km. At the same time, large parts of the previously formed growth belts north of the Indus-Tsangpo suture were tectonically revived, thereby forming the high mountain ranges and large highlands that now characterize the landscapes of Central Asia. India’s northwestern “corner” was pressed deep into the kimmerian fold belt where the Pamir mountain range was raised. In Tibet and China, large, still seismically active lateral faults developed, and worn down folds in the Altaids were transformed into young fractures. Even at the southern edge of Angaras, the Baikal Valley was torn down as a deep wound that went all the way to the bottom of the earth’s crust.
India’s pressure also drove the Eurasian Plate to the north; it may have initiated the development of i.e. The Japanese Arches, which have a foundation of ancient crust. North of Korea, fractures at the edge of the slab loosened a strip of the old mainland crust, and it remained lying, while the Eurasian Plate drifted north, opening the Japanese Sea by rapid seabed spread for approx. 15 million years ago. In the young deposition basins between the mainland and the volcanic arches of East and South Asia, where the heat flow is high, significant oil and gas deposits have developed in a relatively short time.
Asia’s changing geological history of lively and varied magmatic activity has made the continent extremely rich in mineral resources. Extractions include: iron, nickel, platinum, chromium, tungsten, molybdenum, uranium, tin, lead, copper, gold, silver, antimony and mercury. Very famous are the Siberian diamond deposits that are linked to deep crater pipes, where diamond-bearing mantle rocks from at least 150 km depth are explosively carried up into the otherwise extremely stable crust of the Angarakern. It came to DKK 450-150 million. years ago, while new growth belts were developed around the core. Diamonds are also mined in the Ural Mountains and were recently found at a few sites within the Altaids.
Sedimentally formed phosphate-rich layers are widespread in Kazakhstan and eastern Siberia; they are extracted for fertilizers. Asia also houses large deposits of coal and lignite; wrestling happens in central Siberia, China, Vietnam, India and Indonesia.