Page 100 - The Qur'an Leads the Way to Science

THE QUR'AN LEADS THE W A Y TO SCIENCE

The Function of Mountains

The Qur'an draws attention to a very important geological function of
mountains.
We placed firmly embedded mountains on the earth, so it would
not move under them… (Surat al-Anbiya: 31)

As we have noticed, it is stated in the verse that mountains have the
function of preventing shocks in the Earth.
This fact was not known by anyone at the time the Qur'an was revealed.
It was in fact brought to light only recently as a result of the findings of
modern geology.
It used to be thought that mountains were merely protrusions on the face
of the earth.
Scientists have now come to realize that mountains are not just surface
elevations or protrusions, however, but that they extend 10-15 times their
height into the ground, and these extensions are called mountain roots. With
these properties, mountains play a similar role to a nail or a stake hammered
into the ground. For instance, a peak such as Mount Everest, which rises
almost 9 km above the Earth's surface, has a root that extends downward for
more than 125 km. 57
Besides, mountains emerge as a result of the movements and collisions of
massive plates forming the Earth's crust. When two plates collide, the
stronger one slides under the other, the one on the top bends and forms
heights and mountains. The layer beneath proceeds under the ground and
makes a deep extension downward. That means, as pointed out earlier, that
mountains have a portion stretching downwards, as large as their visible
parts on the Earth.
In a scientific text, the structure of mountains is described as follows:
Where continents are thicker, as in mountain ranges, the crust sinks deeper
into the mantle. 58

Professor Siaveda, a world famous marine geologist, made the following
comment in referring to the way mountains are imbedded into the Earth like
roots:
The fundamental difference between continental mountains and the oceanic
mountains lies in its material... But the common denominator on both

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