Fold mountains

Imagine if you play with a big blanket or bedsheet. You can make it into a mountain shape by folding it in half, and then folding it more times. This is kind of what happens with fold mountains, except it takes millions and millions of years to happen and it's way bigger!

The Earth's crust is like a big puzzle, it's made up of different pieces called tectonic plates. Some of these plates slide and bump into each other very slowly, and this can cause the ground to go up and form mountains.

When two tectonic plates push against each other, they can't just go through each other like ghosts. Instead, they get bunched up and folded like a bedsheet getting bunched up. Over time, these folds get bigger and bigger, and can create mountains that can be thousands of miles long!

There are a lot of mountains on Earth that are fold mountains. Some examples are the Himalayan Mountains in Asia, the Andes in South America, and the Rocky Mountains in North America. They can be really tall, and have lots of different shapes depending on how they were folded.