Why are some places mountainous and others are not?

Answer 1

One side doesn't look similar too the other because if for e.g there is a mountain and on one side there is a volcanoe and it erupts then the shooting rocks from the volcanoe will attack on side making rocks mov about and making th sides look different...DUH!

Answer 2

This question can be answered as it concerns the Canadian Rocky Mountains, which are made of layered rock. Perhaps the answer can be applied to mountains made of layered rock in other parts of the world. As explained on page 157 of Ben Gadd's book Handbook of the Canadian Rockies (Corax Press, 1995), and explained in more detail on pages 449 and 450 of his Canadian Rockies Geology Road Tours (Corax Press, 2008), in all the higher peaks of the Canadian Rockies the layers lie nearly flat, not angling downward more than 10 or 20 degrees. The key principle here is that, within the Canadian Rockies at least, flat-lying layered rock erodes more slowly than rock in which the layers angle downward (the proper geological term for down-angling is "dip"). In the Canadian Rockies the rock has been extensively bent (folded) in some places and less so in others. So after millions of years of erosion here, areas of flat-lying rock now stand higher than areas of moderately dipping or steeply dipping rock. A mountain-size area with gentle dip becomes a higher mountain than a similar-sized area with steeper dip. A larger area of gentle dip (in the Canadian Rockies we have an area of 3000 square kilometres like that) becomes a whole group of higher mountains surrounded by lower ones in the adjacent areas of steeper dip. Why does flat-lying rock in the Canadian Rockies erode more slowly than moderately dipping or steeply dipping rock? The answer seems to involve rockslides. Moderately to steeply dipping rock layers slide downward when erosion by a river or a glacier cuts away at the lower edges of the layers. Pulled by gravity, slabs come loose and slide down to the valley floor, breaking up into rubble as they go. A little erosive work at the lower edges of the slabs can bring down a lot of rock -- right to ridgelines. In contrast, the same river or glacier cutting away against flat-lying layers does not produce such rockslides. The rock is not angled steeply enough to slide in the same way. Slides can occur, all right, but they are not as common as the ones caused by the undercutting of dipping layers, and they are seldom as large.

Answer 3

This is explained by Plate Tectonics. The mountainous areas have been compressed and the rocks slowly crumpled and folded, piling up on themselves forming mountains. In other areas this did not happen and they stayed flatter.

Answer 4

if the mountains are of high elevation (~1500ft.), they get snow on their top because of lighter gases

Answer 5

because they want to be. dont judge them