Mount Everest, the World's Tallest Mountain Continues to Grow Every Year. Here's Why.
Mount Everest, the world's tallest mountain continues to grow in stature every year, thanks to the merger of two nearby river systems. For long, experts had suspected that Everest was increasing in height but could not understand the reasons behind the growth spurt, NBC reported. A recent study by University College London, answers these queries in detail.
Mount Everest is currently at a height of 8,849 meters (29,032 ft) and will continue to grow in the future, Daily Mail reported. The study claims that Mount Everest has already grown between 15 to 50m (49-164ft) in the past 89,000 years. The team cited the erosion caused by the nearby river systems as the reason behind Mount Everest's escalating height.
The erosion was facilitated some 89,000 years ago when the Kosi River took over the Arun River, NBC reported. According to the study, the merged rivers eroded large quantities of rock and soil from the Himalayan base located 50 miles away from Everest. This phenomenon led to a geological process known as isostatic rebound.
In this process, when an area becomes lighter in weight, it makes way for landforms to rise on the Earth’s crust, NBC reported. "Essentially, as the river carved away more rocks, the Earth’s crust rebounded, rising like a boat when weight is removed," said coauthor Dai Jingen, a geoscientist at China University of Geosciences in Beijing. Researchers added that the process could also be responsible for Mount Everest being unusually longer in comparison to its neighbors.
Co-author Adam Smith noted the anomaly and stated, "Everest is 250m taller than K2, the world’s second highest peak, but K2 and the other peaks are only 50-100m taller than the subsequent highest peaks," Daily Mail reported.
The scientists share that this phenomenon is not new, NBC reported. According to the team, Mount Everest along with the rest of the Himalayas has been steadily gaining height since its birth.
The research team was surprised to find erosion as the reason behind Everest's growth spurt rather than tectonic activity, NBC reported. "While not entirely revolutionary, these findings are certainly surprising," Dai said.
"It also emphasizes the importance of viewing the Earth as an interconnected system, where changes in one area can have surprising and significant impacts elsewhere," he said. Dai added that the study gives experts a reason to re-examine the current models of Himalayan evolution and focus on areas other than tectonic activity.