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As we sit here in the shadow of Mount Rundle, it's easy to take these immense objects for granted. We look out our window at some of the most spectacular views in Canada--but where did they come from?

To understand the formation of the Rockies, we need to look at a theory known as Plate Tectonics. According to this theory, the surface of the Earth is made up of a series of plates, each of which move relative to the others. At one time, all the continents were joined into one large land mass known as Pangea. Slowly, this supercontinent began to break apart and the continents began to drift.

Periods of mountain building are known as Orogeny's and in this area two have been responsible for the mountains we see today. Prior to these, the North American Plate had been moving in a westerly direction and the neighbouring Pacific Plate trending northward.

Contained as part of this Pacific Plate were chains of islands that became large land masses as the plate moved and literally bulldozed them together (think of it as a giant bulldozer travelling through the pacific piling all the islands into large accumulations). There were two such land masses in the Pacific and they were known as Terranes, more specifically the Intermontane and the Insular Terrane. For simplicity we'll call them the 1st and 2nd Terrane.

As the Pacific Plate moved north, the crust over which it moved was forced down by the North American Plate, back towards the Earth's core. However, as the plate closed in on the 1st Terrane, this land mass was too buoyant to be forced downward and so it was added onto the edge of the continent. This is where much of British Columbia joined North America. Along with this collision came intense forces compressing the already existing land mass. This brought on the first Orogeny, known as the Columbia (it formed the Columbia Mountains made up of the Caribous, Selkirks, Purcells and the Monashees).

The collision causing the Columbia Orogeny occurred about 175 million years ago, and as the shock wave moved eastward, it forced huge masses of rock to crack and slide up over its neighbours. This is known as thrust faulting and was instrumental in the formation of the Rockies. The shock wave began piling up the western ranges, and then the main ranges, around 120 million years ago.

The 2nd Terrane collided around 85 million years ago setting off a whole new series of shock waves and beginning the Laramide Orogeny. The force behind this second collision provided the energy needed to form the front ranges and the foothills. Eventually the force died out as it approached Calgary and so the prairies were left undisturbed.

Interestingly enough, the mountains were originally much larger than they are today. Once exposed, the agents of water, wind and ice began slowly wearing them down and washing them into the oceans. In time (geologic time that is) they may be completely worn down--that is, if another period of mountain building doesn't interrupt the process.