The Andes extends along which of the following ?
West Coast of South America
The Andes run down the western side of South America — option 4.
| Detail | Fact |
|---|---|
| Length | About 7,000 km — the longest continental mountain range in the world |
| Countries | Venezuela, Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, Bolivia, Chile, Argentina |
| Highest peak | Aconcagua, 6,961 m, in Argentina — the highest point outside Asia |
| Type | Young fold mountains, still rising and seismically very active |
How they were formed. The Andes are the classic example of an oceanic-continental convergent margin. The Nazca Plate is being pushed beneath the South American Plate, and the subduction both crumples the continental edge upward and feeds a chain of volcanoes as the descending plate melts. The same process gives the region its earthquakes — the Chilean earthquake of 1960, at magnitude 9·5, remains the strongest ever recorded — and produces the offshore Peru-Chile trench.
Why the other options are wrong, and what does lie there.
| Location | Range that lies there |
|---|---|
| West coast of India | The Western Ghats, a block-faulted escarpment, not a fold range |
| West coast of North America | The Rockies, the Sierra Nevada and the Coast Ranges — the Rockies lie inland and belong to a different orogeny |
| East coast of Australia | The Great Dividing Range, an old, worn range |
What the Andes give the continent. They hold the Altiplano, the world’s second highest plateau; Lake Titicaca, the highest navigable lake; the sources of the Amazon; the copper deposits of Chile and Peru that supply much of the world; and the Atacama desert, which lies in their rain shadow and is among the driest places on Earth.
Hence, the answer is the West Coast of South America.
Similar Questions
Dalmetian Coast is
Which is the oldest mountain of South America continent ?
Amarkantak source place of Son river is situated at
Which is the mountain range along the Mediterranean Coast of Asia Minor ?
Average height of snow-line in Uttarakhand Pradesh is
Kashmir Valley is which type of Valley ?
Which type of rock is formed from cooling and solidification of lava ?
Important Questions from Geomorphology
- Which of the following is a shallow desert depression formed by wind erosion?
- Volcanoes are often found in which type of plate boundary?
- Which of the following is NOT a part of chemical weathering?
- What is the disintegration of rocks into smaller fragments without any change in their chemical composition called?
- A flat or gently sloping surface left behind after river erosion, often with some resistant remnants, is known as:
