from Late Cretaceous Epoch to present time
I know it’s present climatic conditions are due to it being in the horse latitudes
but what shaped it’s topographic features, what geomorphic processes and shaped the subsequent landscape
125,000 yrs ago what kind of environment was Afghanistan? Ya but the cretacious epoch had a much different climate. What shaped the region, was is ever under water, tropical, glacial?
What created the sands and sediments that are present there today?Afghan Phone Book
you answered it horses
Prior to the Mesozoic, the major landmasses that make up today’s continents collected together into the supercontinent Pangaea. This one landmass contained the large equatorial Tethys Sea, where reefs of mollusks flourished and are now preserved in a large area of northern Afghanistan.
Early in the Mesozoic, Pangaea began to break apart into two major pieces: Laurasia to the north of the Tethys Sea and Gondwana to the south. Smaller landmasses split off from Gondwana into the Tethys Sea. During the Cretaceous, one of these landmasses, now part of central Afghanistan south of the Hari Rud fault, was sutured against Laurasia. India was another one of these landmasses, migrating during the Cretaceous and Paleocene across the Tethys; by the middle Eocene, it had begun to collide with Laurasia northeast of Afghanistan, forming the beginning of the Himalayan orogeny. A tongue of the Tethys Sea remained between Afghanistan and India until the Pliocene. Deposited upon this remnant of oceanic crust was marine sediments. As this oceanic crust was subducted westward beneath Afghanistan, igneous activity increased along the eastern margin of Afghanistan that is now west of the Chaman fault. This sea also contained another small landmass that now surrounds Kabul; it collided with Laurasia and then India collided with it. Today, the Kabul landmass is encircled by suture zones. The marine sediments of the Katawaz basin folded as the ocean crust disappeared in the Pliocene.
Afghanistan is a complex juxtaposition of geologic units: Colliding landmasses formed crustal sutures at their boundaries that have rejuvenated and multiplied into abundant lateral and thrust faults that in turn are compensating for continued crustal displacement.
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