It appears Mount Everest hasn’t reached peak growth.
A surprising new report has found that the world’s highest summit is growing more and more each year due to an ancient phenomenon from nearly 90,000 years ago.
The 50-million-year-old Himalayan mountain in East Asia, currently topping off at 29,032 feet, has grown by between 49 and 164 feet in the past 89,000 years, according to researchers from the China University of Geosciences.
“Our study demonstrates that even the world’s highest peak is subject to ongoing geological processes that can measurably affect its height over relatively short geological timescales,” Professor Jingen Dai told The Guardian.
And, perhaps just as interesting, the answer for Everest’s growth is down at ground level — specifically the Arun River north of the mountain. Thousands of years ago, its course of flow was changed due to erosion, and the Arun connected with its lower reach and became part of the nearby Kosi River system.
Scientists, whose work was published in the journal Nature Geoscience, call the phenomenon “river capture,” which formed a gorge at the Arun’s base.
“At that time, there would be an enormous amount of additional water flowing through the Arun River, and this would have been able to transport more sediment and erode more bedrock, and cut down into the valley bottom,” said co-author Dr. Matthew Fox.
That ultimately led to less weight on the Earth’s crust which has, over time, allowed surrounding land to rise up, something scientifically called continental rebound.
That has pushed up Mount Everest between 0.16 and 0.53 millimeters every year.
“This effect will not continue indefinitely,” Dai said. “The process will continue until the river system reaches a new equilibrium state.”
Even academics uninvolved in the research were impressed with the revelation.
“What is unique in this study is the demonstration that erosion resulting from river capture can lead to such a dramatic response of the Earth’s surface,” University of Edinburgh Professor Mikaël Attal told The Guardian.
He noted that it was “fast” to see “an area the size of Greater London going up a few tens of meters in tens of thousands of years.”
