{"id":8244,"date":"2024-10-01T11:37:48","date_gmt":"2024-10-01T11:37:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/digitaltradecenter.com\/index.php\/2024\/10\/01\/mount-everest-is-getting-taller-now-scientists-think-they-know-why\/"},"modified":"2024-10-01T11:37:48","modified_gmt":"2024-10-01T11:37:48","slug":"mount-everest-is-getting-taller-now-scientists-think-they-know-why","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/digitaltradecenter.com\/index.php\/2024\/10\/01\/mount-everest-is-getting-taller-now-scientists-think-they-know-why\/","title":{"rendered":"Mount Everest is getting taller \u2013 now scientists think they know why"},"content":{"rendered":"

Mount Everest has grown by around 15 to 50 metres in the last 89,000 years, and it’s increasing every year. Now, scientists say that’s because the mountain’s water system captured a river.<\/p>\n

When the Arun River joined with another nearby river, the new path created the deep Arun Gorge near Everest<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

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Now, the river network about 46 miles from the mountain is carving away at the substantial gorge, causing the nearby mountain to rise up by as much as two millimetres a year.<\/p>\n

“Mount Everest is a remarkable mountain of myth and legend and it’s still growing,” said PhD student Adam Smith, of UCL Earth Sciences, who co-authored the report.<\/p>\n

“Our research shows that as the nearby river system cuts deeper, the loss of material is causing the mountain to spring further upwards.”<\/p>\n

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The tallest mountain on Earth, Mount Everest is 8,849 metres high, and rises about 250 metres above the next tallest peak in the Himalayas<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

Today, the Arun River, and the gorge it has created, runs through the mountainous region to the east of Everest and merges downstream with the larger Koshi river system.<\/p>\n

Adventurers heading to Everest’s famous base camp will often cross parts of the Koshi on their route.<\/p>\n

Over millennia, the river Arun has washed away billions of tonnes of earth and sediment along its banks, creating the deep gorge.<\/p>\n

As the huge amount of sediment has been moved away, the land has become lighter and the Earth’s crust has pushed up slowly, leading to Everest’s growth spurt – it’s a process called isostatic rebound, write the study’s authors.<\/p>\n

The huge amount of upwards pressure under the crust of the Earth in that area now slightly outweighs the downwards force of gravity.<\/p>\n

Everest’s towering height has led to the “interesting” river system in the area, according to the report’s co-author Dr Jin-Gen Dai at UCL Earth Sciences.<\/p>\n

“The upstream Arun river flows east at high altitude with a flat valley,” he said.<\/p>\n

“It then abruptly turns south as the Koshi river, dropping in elevation and becoming steeper.<\/p>\n

“This unique topography, indicative of an unsteady state, likely relates to Everest’s extreme height.”<\/p>\n

The growth spurt is not unique to Everest, and also affects neighbouring mountains including Lhotse and Makalu, the world’s fourth and fifth highest peaks respectively.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

This post appeared first on sky.com<\/div>\n

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Mount Everest has grown by around 15 to 50 metres in the last 89,000 years, and it’s increasing every year. Now, scientists say that’s because the mountain’s water system captured a river. When the Arun River joined with another nearby river, the new path created the deep Arun Gorge near Everest. Now, the river network <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":8245,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[24],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-8244","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-science"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/digitaltradecenter.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8244","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/digitaltradecenter.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/digitaltradecenter.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/digitaltradecenter.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/digitaltradecenter.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8244"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/digitaltradecenter.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8244\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/digitaltradecenter.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/8245"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/digitaltradecenter.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8244"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/digitaltradecenter.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8244"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/digitaltradecenter.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8244"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}