Being the tallest mountain on the surface of our planet, Mount Everest's peak reaches
a dizzying height of 29,030 ft. But the most amazing thing about this giant is that it's
still growing! Yep, Chomolungma, which is yet another name of the Everest, gets one-tenth
of an inch taller every year! But what if all mountains on Earth never stopped growing?
(What if YOU never stopped growing? Well that’s another video!)
So, let's imagine for a moment what life on Earth with ever-increasing mountains would
look like. One day you wake up to some breaking news.
It turns out that all the mountain ranges and peaks in the world have increased in size
overnight, and it doesn't look as if they're planning to stop anytime soon.
True to form, in a week or so, most mountains already reach the height of 10,000 ft. That's
when helicopters stop flying in particularly mountainous regions because the average altitude
a helicopter can climb is exactly around 10,000 ft.
When, in about a month, mountains reach the height of 40,000 ft, people realize that traveling
somewhere far away isn't as easy as it used to be. Because now, they can't just buy a
plane ticket — mostly because the majority of airplane routes are unavailable now. The
average cruising altitude of an airliner is 30,000 to 35,000 feet. Any higher, and there
is not enough oxygen in the air to fuel the engines, plus, the air itself becomes too
thin to hold the plane up. Surely, aircraft could try to find a way through a rocky maze
of the newly grown mountains, but it would be too risky and would endanger the lives
of everyone on board. So, if you need to get somewhere, you can drive or probably take
a train or a bus. Sailing has become dangerous as well because
not only the mountains on the surface of the planet have grown taller. There are more than
100,000 seamounts in the world, with about 30,000 of them in the Pacific Ocean. That's
why container and cruise ships rest in ports until people try to figure out safe routes
that won't end up in any shipwreck. But you should keep in mind that more than
90% of all the world's cargo is transported by sea! And that's oil, machine parts, equipment,
electronics, clothes and footwear, food and drinks, furniture, toys, and whatnot! And
since it's too dangerous for container ships to roam the waters of the world ocean, people
start to feel an acute shortage of many things they've forgotten how to live without.
Mountaineers are in distress because they can't conquer mountain peaks anymore. The
thing is that people start to feel altitude sickness already at the height of 8,000 ft.
And you need to be super-healthy and well-prepared to climb up to the peak of Mount Everest.
Only around 5,000 people have managed to conquer this peak so far. There, oxygen levels are
three times lower than they are at sea level. So, climbing any higher than Everest? Unlikely.
But with mountains growing taller and taller, there appears another serious problem. When
researchers calculated the weight of Mount Everest, it turned out to be around 357 trillion
pounds! And that's without the weight of snow and ice that cover the peak of the giant in
a thick layer. But even though Everest is already heavy beyond
belief, should it grow, it would be even heavier! It means that the mass of all other mountains
on Earth would be getting bigger and bigger as well! And the more substantial the mass
of something becomes, the stronger the gravity of this object gets.
So, in our fictional scenario, it's our planet's gravity that increases — and you can probably
imagine the consequences! Of course, it would depend on how much stronger the Earth's gravity
would become. But the chances are high that soon after mountains started to grow, you
would only be able to crawl around — forget about running or jumping! Birds wouldn't fly
anymore; high-rise buildings, bridges, and other man-made constructions, as well as tall
trees, would start to collapse. But the Earth's core has to deal with a more
dramatic challenge. It works non-stop holding around 6.5 sextillion tons of the planet's
mass. And once this load gets even heavier, the core might simply collapse inward, putting
an end to everything on the surface of the planet. Uh-oh, I don't like where my story
has taken us... Luckily, you'll never have to find out the
real-life consequences of mountains growing too tall on this planet — if only because
the mountains that exist on Earth will NEVER get significantly higher!
And one of the reasons is the very gravity I've already mentioned. But first, let's figure
out how mountains form! The Earth's crust — or the surface layer — is mobile and
dynamic. It's divided into ginormous pieces that move around as time passes. But there
are no street lights to control the movements of these pieces (also known as tectonic plates).
That's why from time to time, they collide, and the plates' touching edges get pushed
upward. Welcome, a newly-born mountain. (Wah!) By the way, that's exactly how Mount Everest
saw the light of day! But the tectonic plates don't stop. As if trying to find out which
one is stronger, they keep pushing against each other — and meanwhile, the mountain
grows taller! But one day, it becomes too tall and heavy to fight gravity, and the mass
of the mountain itself prevents it from growing up.
On the other hand, the collision of tectonic plates isn't the only way a mountain can form
— there are also volcanic mountains, like the ones on the Hawaiian Islands. For some
reason, in a particular place beneath the surface of the planet, there accumulates too
much magma, and it presses on the Earth's crust from the inside. At some point, all
this pressure blows up the crust and bursts outside in the streams of lava, fountains
of molten rock, and clouds of ash. Molten rock starts to pile up, and eventually, a
mountain is formed. But even in this case, gravity still doesn't let the mountain grow
too tall and heavy. In other words, if gravity on Earth was weaker,
mountains would grow higher, just like on Mars! The Red Planet is home to the tallest
mountain in the whole Solar System (or at least the one we know about) — Olympus Mons.
The height of this Martian giant is 82,020 ft, which is almost three times taller than
Everest! How come this mountain grew so tall? For one thing, eruptions occured more often
on Mars, and mountain-creating lava flows kept going on Mars way longer than here, on
Earth. Plus, the crust of the Red Planet isn't divided into tectonic plates. On Earth, the
movements of these plates distribute lava all over the planet and among different volcanoes.
But on Mars, where the crust doesn't move, all the lava gets piled up into one tremendous
volcano.
But let's return to our native planet and the second reason why mountains don't keep
growing. Surprisingly, it's... rivers! I used to think that rives, on the contrary, make
mountains look taller! They carve into the foot of a mountain and, by eroding some material,
leave deep crevices that emphasize those breathtaking and dramatic peaks! Apparently, I was wrong.
By eroding the materials a mountain is made of, rivers can trigger landslides — and
those don’t let the mountain grow as tall as it could otherwise.
But how about underwater mountains? They are already surrounded by water, so rivers can't
really influence them, right? Yeah, but don't forget about gravity and landslides! These
factors still have some influence on underwater mountains, even though it’s not that great.
Water has higher density than air and it better supports mountains against gravity. That's
the reason why underwater mountains are often way taller than those on the surface. For
example, an inactive volcano in Hawaii, Mauna Kea, is actually the world's tallest mountain
if you measure it from the base to its summit. Its height is 33,500 feet — a bit greater
than that of the Everest. But since the base of the volcano sits deep in the Pacific Ocean,
you can see only 13,796 ft of the mountain peeking above sea level. Aloha!
Hey, if you learned something new today, then give the video a like and share it with a
friend! And here are some other videos I think you'll enjoy. Just click to the left or right,
and stay on the Bright Side of life!