Afghanistan's geography is dominated by the high Hindukush mountain range (highest point in Afghanistan: Nowshak 7,485 m). Geologically, this range marks the collision zone of the Indian with the Eurasian plate. The mostly rugged and mountainous country has only plains north and southwest of the Hindukush.
As expected for a country in a typical collision zone, Afghanistan has only very few young volcanoes, and the few potentially active ones are related to intra-plate hot spot volcanism.
Older (extinct) volcanoes in Afghanistan occur in the southwest of the country, about 300-400 km behind the weakly developed subduction zone south off the Makran coast, where the Arabian sea floor is subducting at a shallow angle to the north. Between Afghanistan and the coast is a 300-km-wide accretion prism of sediments scraped off the Arabian sea floor to form the E-W ranges of the Makran mountains (Pakistan), which merge into the Sistan range to the west.
Pakistan into Afghanistan.
In contrast to the very low rate of volcanic activity, Afghanistan suffers from frequent and intense earthquakes caused by the violent tectonic forces the colliding Arabian and Indian plates into Eurasia.
No news in this list.
