The Cape Fold Mountains have been re-exposed by erosion of the coastal plain below the Great Escarpment (see Geological origin, above), after having been covered by sediments originating from an even higher and more extensive range of mountains, comparable to the Himalayas, that developed during the assembly of Gondwana to the south of the present African continent, on the portion of Gondwana called the Falkland Plateau, the remnants of which are at present located far to the southwest of southern Africa close to southern tip of South America.