Post #1: Korengal Valley

A large majority of Afghanistan is made up of mountains. While all of Afghanistan lies within the Eurasian Tectonic Plate, the mountains of Afghanistan are the trailing end of the NW Tibetan Plateau. These mountains were formed from the converging of the Eurasian and Indian Tectonic Plates.


This drawing shows the multiple plates that make up our Earth's mantle. Drawing taken from
pep.bc.ca

The compression of these two plates also led to the formation of the many valleys that make up Afghanistan's mountain range.


On this map, from topnews.in, the rippled look of central Afghanistan can easily be seen.

Within the mountains of Afghanistan lies a specific area of interest, that area is the Korengal Valley. Within this valley lies many geological formations. One of which is the abundance of shale.


From the documentary Restrepo


If you look to the right of this soldier, you will see large amounts of shale. The shale was first created on the ocean floor, but subsequently made its way to the mountains. This possibly could be result of convergence. As the plates collided, what was once under the water was pushed to the surface. The shale was created from clay on the ocean floor.



discovermilitary.com

The angle of the rocks in this photo are the possible result of faulting.

All in all, the terrain of the Korengal Valley greatly affects the people that are there. For soldiers, it creates a tough and unforgiving environment to fight in. And for the people that live there, it creates a difficult land to live off of. It is for this reason that many farmers of the area strip away at the land to create flat areas to plant seed.


From commons.wikimedia.org