EVER wondered how mountains attain their heights and how mountains formation takes place? It’s is a continuous process and it takes the hills years to grow even an inch. But with a Lucknow University geology teacher coming up with an innovative technique, mountains formation can be witnessed right on your table top, in just half an hour.
Devised by Dr Kamal Kishore Agarwal, a faculty with LU Geology department, this technique to showcase instant mountain formation has not only gained popularity among the local geologists here, but various foreign and Indian universities are also amazed by this LU teacher’s skills.
Impressed by the popularity, even the Centre has granted a Rs 12-lakh project to Agarwal so that he can carry out his work more extensively and on a larger scale.
“Several noted Indian and foreign universities are approaching us to devise a similar set-up for them. At Benaras Hindu University, I recently installed this model, which shows you the pattern and procedures that the earth crust follows to come up as mountain ranges,” said Agarwal.
Interestingly, Agarwal has not used any sophisticated or expensive instrument in his model. “A glass chamber fitted on a wooden base, an electric motor, sand and adhesive are all I need for my simple yet unique project. And that’s the beauty of my project — a first of its kind in India, which shows the millions of years old evolutionary pattern of mountains formation in just half an hour,” he added.
“The quality of sand used in my project makes it more natural. The force developed by the motor produces an effect much like folding and faulting of the earth curst in the glass chamber containing the sand. With the disturbance, wedges appear in the sand much similar to that of the natural process.
“In about half-an-hour, with the movement of sand you can yourself witness the formation of the mountain ranges.
“Later, due to the presence of adhesives, sand solidifies and assumes the shape of mountains,” said Agarwal, who has studied orogeny of different mountain ranges, including the Himalayas.
About the measures taken to develop this model, the Lucknow teacher said: “The sand should be in its purest form. It is extensively washed with acid so that it comes to its natural state. And this makes this ‘virtual’ mountain formation look natural.”
Recently, geologists from the Geological Survey of India visited Agarwal’s lab. They are learnt to have expressed eagerness to work with him so that the novel model can get global acceptance.