So mount Everest is obviously the tallest mountain in out current world and I have heard geologists say there were potentially taller mountains on earth in the past.
It got me thinking, is their an upper limit on how tall a mountain could get on earth? My guess would be it would be at the point where the weight of the mountain became enough to overcome the tectonic forces thrusting it upward. What is that tho? Everest is a little over 28,000 ft. Could a mountain be 30, 40, 50 thousand or more feet? Is there anyway to tell? Is there any geologic evidence that there have ever been any taller mountains in earths past?
Mountains could theoretically reach 50k feet but they would have to be at the equator
Adrian Lewis
Source/proof? Just curious where you get that number from.
Angel Brown
Jk
Austin Parker
So the tricky thing about mountain size is that it's hard to cheat it - the further up you go, the mass required to do so gets drastically higher. The Himalayan Orogeny is fairly close to the limits of what continent-continent collision can do, and the required amount of uplift can't come from another type of tectonic boundary. There might have been a mountain 30,000 feet tall, but 40,000 would be almost impossible.
Brody Brooks
The tallest mountain on mars (Olympus Mons) is about 22 km, which is around 72,000 ft in American units of tallness. Given that Mars is substantially smaller than Earth and geologically less active, I suppose the upper limit of the tallest mountain on Earth is a whole lot higher than 22 km.
> Earth mountains can never be as tall as Mons Olympus. >talkingphysics.wordpress.com/2011/09/08/how-high-can-mountains-be/ The absolute limit is when rock begins to crack under its own weight. Mars has only about 1/3rd of Earth's gravitation, so mountains can be 3 times taller there. In addition, Mars is desiccated. Water acts as a lubricant and weakens rocks, allowing them to slip. Oklahoma started experiencing daily earthquakes when oil companies began injected water into the ground to "frack". Finally, Earth has weather which wears away even rock in time.
Mons Olympus got so large because Mars' crust is rigid. It doesn't have moving continental plates. On Earth, the Hawaiian islands formed one-after-another as the crust moved over an underlying "hot spot". On Mars, Mons Olympus stayed in place over such a spot indefinitely.
Kevin Adams
I meant farthest from the Earth's core.
Jackson White
...
James Price
>"hehe I repeat le epic big bong theroy maymay I em so smaret"
Angel Stewart
That's not Everest, that's Chimborazo.
Jaxon Martinez
I'm a geologist but this is by no means my area. Yes there is a limit. When mountains get too high they just compact the mantle more. Weathering takes care of the rest. How high is that? That's a great question with lots of debate in current geology.
As an example, the Appalachian mountains are some 480 million years old. The orogenic event which created it built a very tall mountain range but equally pushed a great deal of material down thickening the crust. As the top weathered down the lighter thicker crust gets pushed up by buoyant forces in the mantle to be weathered more. It's a process that's gone on for over 400 million years.
Both of them are still in their infancy and both are fraught with problems. Oxygen isotopes are also influenced by regional weather and leaves are poor indicators in extreme high altitudes when you get above plant lines. So all our estimates are based on assumptions that get argued about endlessly.
So tl:dr your guess is about as good as anyone's.
Josiah Green
Is there not a geophysical way to figure this out in theory? Like I feel like there should be one good estimate or a small range.
Easton Bennett
Oh, my hasty internet search didn't get me what I was looking for but some other article about leaf mass and altitude. Well, it's similar. Leaves change shape as they go higher in altitude and that's been used to measure paleo altimetry as well
William Rivera
Geologists are cool as shit.
Aiden Rivera
Oh sure. We use computer models for this, the accuracy is debated but it can give you estimates. As I said it's outside my area, the best I can do is internet searches open to anyone.
Zachary Cruz
>>"hehe I repeat le epic big bong theroy maymay I em so smaret" Who are you quoting?
Wyatt Campbell
Your mom
Logan Bennett
>Earth mountains can never be as tall as Mons Olympus. >>talkingphysics.wordpress.com/2011/09/08/how-high-can-mountains-be/ >The absolute limit is when rock begins to crack under its own weight. Mars has only about 1/3rd of Earth's gravitation, so mountains can be 3 times taller there. >In addition, Mars is desiccated. Water acts as a lubricant and weakens rocks, allowing them to slip. Oklahoma started experiencing daily earthquakes when oil companies began injected water into the ground to "frack". >Finally, Earth has weather which wears away even rock in time. >Mons Olympus got so large because Mars' crust is rigid. It doesn't have moving continental plates. On Earth, the Hawaiian islands formed one-after-another as the crust moved over an underlying "hot spot". On Mars, Mons Olympus stayed in place over such a spot indefinitely. Thanks for pointing out the flaws in my uninformed post, I appreciate it user.
