The Mystery of Jayawijaya Mountains

For mountaineer, climbing the ranks of Jayawijaya Mountains is a dream. Imagine, on one mountain peak there is the highest point in Indonesia, namely Carstensz Pyramide with a height of 4884 meters above sea level (masl).
Do not be surprised if the top mountain climbers always world-class racing to climb one point of entry in the top seven rows of the continent. Especially with the existence of eternal snow peaks are always covered it, making more passionate desire to reach it.
But who would have thought if the snowy peaks that formerly was part of a very deep ocean floor!

"New Guinea began to take shape at 60 million years ago. At that time, the island is still in the seabed sediments formed by rocks. Precipitation intensive originating from the continent of Australia in a long period of time generate new land that is now called Papua. At that time, Papua was integrated with Australia, "said geologist Francis Benedict Widodo Margotomo during their presentation on the history of the formation of New Guinea.

The presence of Guinea today, he continued, can not be separated from the geological theory that says that this world only have a continent named Pangea at 250 million years ago. During period 240 million to 65 million years ago, Pangaea split into two continents by forming Laurasia continent and Eurasian continent, which became the forerunner to the formation of continents and mountains that currently exist worldwide.

At that time also, the Eurasian continent in the southern hemisphere continents Gonwana broke out again into that later will be the mainland of South America, Africa, India, and Australia.

"At that time, the continent of Australia with other continents separated by oceans. In the sea of the northern part of New Guinea rocks that settles that became part of Australia will appear in the future, "added the dropout geology graduate of the National Development University, Yogyakarta, in 1986 this.

Precipitation is very intensive from this kangaroo continent, he added, eventually lifting the stone into the sediments above sea level. Of course, the appointment process is based on the geologic time scale with a speed of 2.5 km per million years.

This process is compounded by the occurrence of plate collision between the Indo-Pacific plate with the Indo-Australian on the seabed. Plate collision resulted in the island arc, which also became the forerunner of the islands and mountains in Papua.

Finally, the appointment process is ongoing due to sedimentation and tectonic events along under the sea, within a period of millions of years to produce high mountains as you can see today.

Evidence that the high mountains of New Guinea and its never been part of the deep seafloor can be seen from the fossil remains in rocks Jayawijaya.
Although located at an altitude of 4800 masl, fossilized sea shells, for example, can be seen in limestone and clastic rocks contained in Jayawijaya Mountains. Therefore, besides being a heaven for hikers, mountain paradise Jayawijaya also a world geological researchers.

While the separation of the Australian mainland and Papua by the sea starts from the end of the ice age that occurred at 15,000 years ago. The melting of ice into the ocean in the end separates the mainland of Papua with the Australian continent.

"There are still many secrets of rocks Jayawijaya untapped. Moreover, the age of Guinea is still considered young so that the process of appointment of the island still continues to this day. This is also the reason of the mention of Papua New Guinea to Guinea, which means it is an island that was new, "added winning master's degree in Economic Geology from James Cook University, Townswille, Australia.

While the presence of snow on some peaks Jayawijaya, he believes will fade away like that of Mount Kilimanjaro in Tanzania. The loss of the only snow that is owned by the mountains in Indonesia was caused by global climate changes that occur in the tropics.