Earth: The Power of the Planet 1. Volcano (14 of 32)

Earth: The Power of the Planet

Yet even in this short timescale, these peaks have grown into giants.
All the world's great mountain ranges form in this way when continents collide.
You can really get a sense of how the surface of the Earth crumples when you look down from space.
These are the European Alps...
..the South American Andes...
..and the Himalayas of Central Asia.
They're all relatively young, born out of recent collisions between plates.
Sometimes, you can actually see their growing pains.

Earthquakes are a horrific force of destruction.
Entire cities can be wiped out at terrible human cost.
But this is what happens when our planet builds its great mountain ranges.
THEY SHOUT In October 2005, a devastating earthquake hit the Western Himalayas in Northern Pakistan.
The area around the town of Muzaffarabad was completely razed to the ground.
But satellites measuring the height of the surrounding land before and after the earthquake revealed that something else had happened as well - the red and yellow colours show how the hills to the east of the earthquake's epicentre had actually risen as much as five metres during the earthquake.