When you purchase through links on our situation , we may earn an affiliate charge . Here ’s how it works .
Mount Everest is the reality ’s tallest mountainas measured from ocean level . But will it hold that statute title forever ?
To respond this question , first we must understand how tidy sum shape and howMount Everestand the residuum of the Himalayas got so tall . One way tall mountains form is when twotectonic platescollide . As one begins to subduct — or move under — the other , crust gets mushed around , upheaved , and turned into mountains .
Mount Everest is the highest mountain as measured from sea level. This impressive height was made possible through factors like tectonics and erosion.
According toRob Butler , a geologist at the University of Aberdeen in Scotland , the heights of the mountains that form during these collision bet on many factors . These characteristic include the thickness of the Earth’s crust , which is determined by the intensiveness and distance of the tectonic collision , and the crust ’s temperature , which is find by its old age .
" imagine of the crust not as a solid , but as a gummy liquidness , like maple sirup , " Butler evidence Live Science . Like moth-eaten maple sirup , cold crust is more viscous and , therefore , firmer . So thicker , colder crust can form taller mountains than thinner , warm cheekiness can .
Other than the heaviness and temperature of the crust , the most authoritative factor in determining the height and growth of mountains is erosion .
Mount Everest is the highest mountain as measured from sea level. This impressive height was made possible through factors like tectonics and erosion.
Related : What ’s the old passel range in the world ? ( How about the youngest ? )
" It ’s because erosion is so effective that [ the Himalayas ] are one of the flying rising systems of careen on the major planet , " Butler said . This is because of a precept holler isostasy . Much like a container ship drift in the ocean , the less textile that ’s heap on Earth ’s crust , the higher it float above the mantle , the satellite ’s middle layer .
So the more stuff that is transported away from a mountain — whether via a river , a glacier or hard rains and landslip — the more the mountains around it can rise . In fact , a2024 studyfound that the rapid erosion of a river web more than 45 mile ( 72 kilometers ) from Mount Everest helped the peak produce between 49 and 164 foot ( 15 and 50 meters ) in the past 89,000 years .
Although eating away is one factor in mountain ' increment , it is also part of what cause them to wither , explainedMatthew Fox , co - generator of the report and a geologist at University College London . " [ Whether mountains grow or shrink ] depend on this rest between the pace of erosion and the rates of upthrust , " Fox told Live Science . If the rate of uplift is higher , the mountain will farm . If the charge per unit of eroding is higher , the mountain will wither .
Some scientists have suggest that Nanga Parbat , one of Everest ’s Himalayan neighbor and the 9th - tallest great deal on Earth , is growing tight enough toone day catch up with Everestin height . However , Butler and Fox doubt this will pass . Although Nanga Parbat is spring up faster than Everest due to rapid erosion , it is also wear away faster due to the intensity of monsoons in that area . In contrast , Everest is growing and eroding more slowly , leaving it at a pretty constant 2,000 feet ( 610 1000 ) improbable than Nanga Parbat .
However , Butler does n’t discount the possibility that another Himalayan heap may take the throne someday . Weather factors could change over fourth dimension , he said , causing shifts in the peaks ' growth charge per unit . " [ architectonic hit in the Himalayas ] is proceed to keep for another 10 million years , " Butler said . " There ’s plenty of time to juggle these variables around a bit . "
withal , Butler thinks it ’s unbelievable there will ever be a peak importantly taller than Everest . The Himalayas sit in the sweet place ; they constitute due to a very acute and long collision case with cold freshness and mellow wearing rates due to monsoon . They were also compose in by surrounding pile ranges , leaving footling room for the incrustation to escape during the hit .
— How do passel form ?
— How much deoxyephedrine is on Mount Everest ?
— What ’s the high a great deal can grow on Earth ?
" If you squash things , they ’ve have to go up or crabwise , " Butler told Live Science . " And when sideways is taken , they ’ve got nowhere to go but up . "
It ’s very rarefied for all of these factors to run along up , Butler said , and it might not have happened before the Himalayas . Moreover , on Earth , somberness is too powerfulto leave a mountain to get much magniloquent than Everest ’s current height .
" If we ’re talking a few meter , or even a few hundred meters , there ’s every possibility that another mass could overtake Everest , " Butler tell Live Science . " But in terms of doing something important , like peak that are 10 kilometers [ 6 Swedish mile ] high , I would cogitate probably not . "
