The significance of bent mountain belts
Mountain belts, also called orogens, are the factories where stable continental crust is originated. They run along thousands of kilometres on the Earths surface and depict an almost linear geometry, occasionally interrupted by curved tracts. We search the importance of those curved tracts in the mountain belts, if they constitute a tectonic structure by themselves and, if so, what is its relevance. The relevance of the curved mountain belts is of timely importance in understanding whether they are caused by crustal or lithospheric processes, if they are the answer to sudden stress changes, if they provide efficient pathways for fluid circulation in the crust and, fundamentally, what processes cause them.