Nepalese lifestyle is shape by their inherited cultural practices but also by Nepal's Geomorphology and Climatology, which in turn, play an important role in the existing Biodiversity.
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| GoogleEarth Overview of Nepal |
The Lonely Planet Nepal Travel Guide provides a nice summary of Nepal's geomorphology:
"Imagine the space currently occupied by Nepal as an open expanse of water, and the Tibetan plateau as the coast. This was the situation until 60 million yrs ago when the Indo-Australian plate collided with the Eurasian continent, bucking the earth's crust up into mighty ridges and forming the mountains we now call the Hiwalaya.
The upheaval of mountains caused the temporary obstruction of rivers that once flowed unimpeded from Eurasia to the sea. Simultaneously, new rivers arose on the southern slopes of these young mountains as moist winds from the tropical seas to the south rose and precipitated. For the next 60 million yrs, the mountains moved up, and rivers and glaciers cut downwards, creating the peaks and valleys seen across Nepal today.
The modern landscape of Nepal - a grid of four major mountain systems, incised by the north-south gorges of rivers - is not the final story. The Indo-Australian plate is still sliding under the Eurasian Himalaya at a rate of 27 mm per yr and pushing the Himalaya even higher. As fast as the mountains rise, they are being eroded by glaciers, rivers and landslides, and chipped away by earthquakes and the effects of cold and heat.
Nepal is still an active seismic zone. A huge earthquake caused devastation around the country in 1934 and a similar-sized quake today would undoubtedly cause massive damage to the densely packed and poorly constructed buildings that dominate the Kathmandu Valley."
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