The Geology of Burma - Zomi Online Library

Bibliography of Burman Earth Science
The time difference: UTC+6.5 (11.5 hours ahead of Washington, DC during
Standard Time). Note: Nay Pyi Taw is actually the administrative capital. There are
seven administrative division (taing-myar, singular - taing) and 7 states (pyi ne-myar,
singular - pyi ne). The divisions are: Ayeyarwady, Bago, Magway, Mandalay, Sagaing,
Tanintharyi, Yangon. The seven states are: Chin, Kachin, Kayah, Kayin, Mon, Rakhine
and Shan.
Burma lies in Southeastern Asia, bordering the Andaman Sea and the Bay of
Bengal, between Bangladesh and Thailand. It is slightly smaller in land area than Texas,
and has a total area of 678,500 sq km. Of this, land covers 657,740 sq km, and water
covers 20,760 sq km. The national boundaries total: 5,876 km, with border countries
boundaries of: Bangladesh at 193 km; China at 2,185 km; India at 1,463 km; Laos at 235
km and Thailand with a shared boundary of 1,800 km. There is also 1,930 km of
coastline.
The Physical Features of Burma 1
Geology, Topology and Terrain
As a country, Burma slopes downward in elevation from the north to the south,
and is naturally divided into “Upper Burma” and “Lower Burma”. The terrain is made up
of central lowlands ringed by steep, rugged highlands. In the north, the Hengduan Shan
mountains form the border with China. Mount Hkakabo Razi, located in the Kachin State,
is at an elevation of 5,881 m (19,295 ft), and is the highest point in Burma. The mountain
ranges in Burma generally run from north to south as well. Three of these mountain
ranges, namely the Rakhine Yoma, the Bago Yoma, and the Shan Plateau, all exist within
Burma, and all of these ranges run from north-to-south from the Himalayas.
These mountain chains also divide Burma's three main river systems, which are
the Irrawaddy (aka Ayeyarwady), the Salween (aka Thanlwin), and the Sittang rivers.
Burma's longest river, the Irrawaddy River, is nearly 2,170 kilometers (1,348 mi) long,
and it flows through the country and into the Gulf of Martaban. Fertile plains exist in the
valleys between the mountain chains. The majority of Burma's population lives in the
Irrawaddy valley, which is situated between the Rakhine Yoma and the Shan Plateau.
As a whole, Burma can be divided into five physiographic regions: the northern
mountains; the western ranges; the eastern plateau; the central basin and lowlands, and
finally the coastal plains.
The northern mountain region consists of a series of ranges that form a geological
complex at Mount Hkakabo. In terms of plate tectonics, this geological complex or
“geologic knot” marks the northeastern limit of the encroaching Indian-Australian Plate.
The Indian-Australian Plate has been colliding with the southern edge of the Eurasian
Plate for roughly the past 50 million years, and has been thrusting up the mountain ranges
1 The data in this introductory section are collected from a number of open literature and common
knowledge publications and resources, such as various almanacs, AGI’s “Glossary of Geology”,
geographical dictionaries and gazetteers; encyclopedias such as the World Survey of Climatology, the
Encyclopedia Britannica, Encarta, Water Encyclopedia, etc.; open source government publications and
websites from the US Department of State, the Library of Congress, the Defense Technical Information
Center, the Food and Agriculture Organization of the UN and others; the CIA Factbook, and several
different reports, articles and books on Burma from federal government geological and geographical
resources.
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