Orogeny (Greek for "mountain generating") is the process of natural
mountain building, and may be studied as a tectonic structural event, as a geographical event and a chronological event, in that orogenic events cause distinctive structural phenomena and related tectonic activity, affect certain regions of rocks and crust and happen within a time frame.
Orogenic events occur solely as a result of the processes of plate tectonics; the problems which were investigated and resolved by the study of orogenesis contributed greatly to the theory of plate tectonics, coupled with study of flora and fauna, geography and mid ocean ridges in the 1950s and 1960s.
The physical manifestations of orogenesis (the process of orogeny) are orogenic belts or orogens. An orogen is different from a mountain range in that an orogen may be almost completely eroded away, and only recognizable by studying (old) rocks that bear the traces of the orogeny. Orogens are usually long, thin, arcuate tracts of rocks which have a pronounced linear structure resulting in terranes or blocks of deformed rocks, separated generally by dipping thrust faults. These thrust faults carry relatively thin plates (which are called nappes, and differ from tectonic plates) of rock in from the margins of the compressing orogen to the core, and are intimately associated with folds and the development of metamorphism.
The topographic height of orogenic mountains is related to the principle of isostasy, where the gravitational force of the upthrust mountain range of light, continental crust material is balanced against its buoyancy relative to the dense mantle.
