Geological structure. Like North America, Eurasia millions of years ago was part of the ancient continent of Laurasia. From other continents of the globe it features an extremely complex crustal structure. This is the result of a long and complex geological history of its development.

Gigantic in size Eurasia is not only all Eurasian lithospheric plate . But some of the other Indo-Australian . Along the line of collision, the crust is crumpled in folds – they formed the Alpine-Himalayan fold belt . Therefore, the mountain that appeared in this zone, located on the fringes along the coast, as on other continents, and inland and southern parts of Eurasia. Along the East coast of the mainland stretches another fold belt Pacific . arising at the junction with the Pacific lithospheric plate.

Fold belt are seismic zones, where the intense movements of the earth’s crust, earthquakes and volcanoes. The largest active volcano in Europe within Mediterranean seismic belt is Hekla, Etna and Vesuvius . Active volcanoes of Asia – Klyuchevskaya Sopka, Fuji, Krakatoa, and others – are Pacific seismicheskogo. Continue reading →