The Misnomer of Mountain Building

 Blue Mountains, Australia
( ...  which are neither blue, nor particularly mountainous .. )

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My dictionary says mountains are just big hills.   Geologists talk glibly enough of mountain building, ...so why don't we talk of hill-building? ...but we don't, ..do we?  Ever wonder why not...? The answer is couched in the biblical belief in Plate Tectonics. 

Fig.1. Blue Mountains, Australia .. (through a mist .. darkly). ["Plates and mountains" - (Cowboys - pulling the wool, drawing the long bow.) ]

Who remembers the good old days (Grampaw?) when mountains were just high bits of ground?  At least, higher than everywhere else.  Which was funny when you thought about it, ...because .. how come?   How did it happen that great chunks of land were higher than everywhere else?  And when you thought about it,  mountains were not really mountains at all, but just wot wuz left when there wuz valleys.  And you got valleys when it rained.    And that was what *really* made them pointy and steep (The mountains.)  The valleys.  Well, ... those fluffy clouds up there, .. sun, .. evaporation, .. condensation, ..rain-wind-and-weather, .. and climate (.. change) ..

(Then there wuz Geolorgie... an' Plate Tectonics)

"Now, ..WaaAit a Miiiinute!  What are we talking about here?  The mountains or the valleys?"
"NawwwWww, ....rain,  ....weather, ...erosion,  ... climate (change), global warming,  ..grass growing and slowing erosion and helping mountains grow, ..  Sea-level. ... "
"Sea-Level?  Is the sea level?   I thought it was round like the Earth."
"Yeah, ....Gravity.   It's been round for ever.  Ever since the planet."
"Yeah?"
"Yeah....  Well, ... sort of, ...it's kind of like, ..yeah, .. That's why its level.  At least, it's becoming level."
"Yeah?"
"Yeah, ... an' you get fossils everywhere, showing every so often the sea comes up and swamps the land.  ..I mean levels the land."
"Gee, . How?  Does it really rain that fast?"
"Yeah, ..  Forty days and forty nights.  It's true."

P.T.-ers, ..Pteros, Pterologists, Pteromancers, Pterrorists 
..and the avant garde, ..the Hill-Buildies,... 
...snoring away like Rip Van Winkle..