Why there are seashells on top of the Himalayas

Transcript

The Himalayas were once an ocean and there the reason many Hindu homes contain fossils that are millions of years old. This is a shaligram found in the Gandhaki river in Nepal and it's believed to be a form of Vishnu. It looks like a rock but it's actually a fossil of an ammonite which is a type of extinct sea creature that existed millions of years ago. But hold on, why are we finding fossils of sea creatures in the Himalayas? But totally land locked region with the highest mountains in the world. Okay so back when dinosaurs still existed, India was an island. No seriously it looked like this. Because of plate tectonics, the island of India was moving towards Asia at a speed of 15 to 20 cm every year. Yeah I know that it doesn't sound blazing fast but for a country sized landmass that's actually insane. As India moved closer and closer to Asia, the ocean in between them called the tethicine became smaller and shallower. Chalower water means warmer temperatures which was the perfect breeding ground for all kinds of exotic marine life. Like the ammonite. So while the tethicine was an awesome feeding ground for a few million years, eventually India collided with Asia and the two land masses went from this to this. All the water was drained from this area and the force of India's collision meant that the land between us and Asia kept going up up up up until it formed the Himalayas. The coolest part is India is still in the process of collision with Asia which is why the Himalayas are still growing at a rate of almost 1 cm per year. They are the youngest mountains range in the world and because of the sheer magnitude of the collision they are also the highest mountains in the world. Now what happened to all those marine animals that used to live in the tethicine? Well when they died their bodies settled in the sea bed which would eventually be pushed up into the Himalayas. Over millions of years they turned into fossils which stayed on the mountains until humans began to find them. This is why we find seashells even near the top of Mount Everest. So the Shaligramu worship in the Apujarum isn't just some cool looking stone from a sacred river. It's literally evidence of the earth's fascinating geological history.

Transcribed automatically from the video, so small errors are possible.