Monte Everest is growing because of a “pirate” river, says study

Seen as a symbol of prestige and status, climbing Mount Everest in Himalayan presents a series of risks, such as temperatures up to -60ºC, altitude ill, avalanches, high costs and a tight climate window.

To these obstacles, future climbers should add one more: the highest mountain on the planet is growing, and louder than the other elevations of their mountain range.

Although it seems surprising, The truth is that the mountains grow . And not only grow, but also suffer erosion and wear and tear, as well as a process of “fluctuation” over the earth’s cloak called Isostasia.

According to a recent study, Published in Nature GeoscienceEverest is about 15 to 50 meters higher than it should, due to the erosion caused by a river network, 75 km, which is digging a large canyon.

The loss of land mass due to the erosive action of the river is having an effect called isostatic adjustment. When a large amount of land or ice that is compressing the terrestrial crust is removed, it slowly rebounds to recover its balance.

In the case of Everest, the mountain is rising at a rate of up to two millimeters per year. Over the past 89 thousand years, this accumulated elevation already increased the height of the mountain between 15 and 50 meters .

Testing Everest’s growth

To test their hypotheses, the authors used mathematical and computational tools, to simulate the evolution of rivers over time.

One of these mathematical approaches, called Flow power model describes the relationship between the flow of water from a river and the way it affects the surrounding terrain.

The goal is to predict possible landscape elevations based on factors such as water speed and rock movement. Although this rate may vary in other places, the authors considered that the elevation of the land occurs at a constant pace.

To understand how this elevation occurs, the researchers have analyzed the cooling and exhumation of rocks, a process in which deep stones of the earth’s crust are brought to the surface.

Called thermocronometric, these studies have shown that there is a specific range of faster lifting in an area where tectonic plates movement happens on a deep ramp in the terrestrial crust.

This means that in certain regions the terrain is rising faster due to geological forces that act below the surface, which also contributes to the elevation of Everest.

Why does Everest continue to grow?

In a press release, co -author Adam Smith, a doctoral student at the Department of Earth Sciences at University College London (UCL), ensures that Mount Everest “is still growing.”

For him, the research showed that as the river “cuts deeper”, and removes the weight of the region, the earth’s crust gradually rises, and the mountain grows at height. This means that superficial processes can influence the geodynamics of large mountain ranges.

According to the study, the elevation of Everest occurred thousands of years ago, as a result of a “drainage piracy”, process in which one river “steals” the flow of another.

In this river capture, the Arun River, which today runs to east of Mount Everest, may have stolen the flow of the Kosi River, increasing its flow. This intensified the throat incision, deep canyons that the rivers sculpt on the land, Removing billions of tons of land and sediments .

For the main author of the study, Xu Han of the Chinese University of Geosciences, “the interaction between the Arun River erosion and the upward pressure of Earth’s cloak drives Everest, raising it to a higher height than it would have without this process.”

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This content was originally published in Monte Everest is growing because of a “pirate” river, says a study on CNN Brazil.

Source: CNN Brasil