If the Rocky Mts were ripped up by a passing smaller planet, how long would it have taken?

Question

The Andes and Rockies are lying on a great circle. The moon pulls the oceans up 5 to 15 ft. as it passes around. The only logical explanation for the crust upheaval of the mt chain is a passby of a body bigger that the moon and smaller than the earth.

Answer 1

Actually they were created by plate tectonics. as plate collide they force the edges upward creating mountains. Think of it as a train wreck in very very slow motion. The smokeys were formed in much the same way but are older because erosion over the eons have worn them away. Volcanoes can also create mountains. This is evident with volcanic islands. New undersea mountains/volcanoes are growing every day.

Answer 2

Man you are way out there. Water cannot cause mountains to be lifted it brings them down by erosion. You must be reading Valikovsky or some other crackpot. Much of this kind stuff came out before some serious advances in Geology. Plate Tectonics went through it's biggest boom only in the 60s and 70s. Before that there wasn't a very strong consensus about what caused mountains. It would be hard for somebody today to predict that Venus went by and moved mountains. Mountains are surely a collisional tectonics feature. There is too much evidence to argue it.

Answer 3

If your theory is true then we would have had to have had many such close calls to account for all the mountain ranges. They are due to plate tectonics. After millions of years the mountain ranges will erode. This is why the Rock Mountains are higher and more mountainy looking than the Appalachians.

Answer 4

Try looking up the phrase "subduction zone tectonics."