The tallest mountain is now a bit more towering, noted scientists who discovered the difference. What could have added to it, and what caused it.
Officially Mt. Everest is now a wee bit taller, as surveyors have discovered recently, but there is more to it than meets the eye.
China and Nepal had a meeting this week and reached a consensus to acknowledge a new standard height for Everest. It lies in between the Chinese and Nepalese border in the high frontier, reported MSN.
Measuring the height of the highest peak with the geological features' changes, and comparing data to get the proper measurement of the highest mount on the earth's surface. How would it be settled for sure?
Land surfaces ups and downs
All the crustal and surface features from the tallest mountains to the lowest valleys and the seafloor are caused by tectonic plates that interlock. These jigsaw pieces from the surface and can be pushed up and down. Their movements cause tremors or earthquakes too.
These forces determine the rising or sinking of mountain ranges like the Himalayas over millions of years, said Dang Yamin. Part of China's surveyors who went to Everest.
He told an outlet that nature tends to equalize everything, even a mountain peak's height. Not to mention an earthquake that caused the mountain to sink after 150 years of rising on the continental plates' borders.
How to measure the peak
A new method tried to estimate the height of the Himalayan titan. Last year, a team of Nepalese climbers installed a satellite navigation marker on Everest's peak to measure the position via GPS satellites in orbit. Another Chinese expedition set up their tracker for the Beidou constellation of navigation satellites, with extra apparatus.
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The Nepal team used modern, laser-equipped versions of instruments called theodolites to measure the peak. It is a system that uses trigonometry to figure out the elevation accurately.
Other instrumentation carried by the Nepalese is ground-penetrating radar to estimate how much snow and ice extends from bare rock underneath.
How high is Mt. Everest
There have been changes in the Himalayas caused by the movement of the tectonic plates underneath pushing the mountain range higher. After working on the figure, the Nepalese and Chinese have worked out based on their instrument shows a bump in elevation.
An official height of 8,848.86 meters (29,031.69 feet) above sea level has been announced by both nations. Its publicized announcement on Wednesday is called a sign of cooperation amidst the border's wars of China.
This new height is about 0.86 meters (more than 2 feet) is more than the previous measures given by Nepal. For a year, both nations cannot reconcile the actual height of the Himalayan peak. Getting the actual sea level is difficult with tides and the earth's magnetic field adding more factors too.
Sea levels are rising is one more factor that will impact measurements in the future too. Earth is a mesh of constantly moving plates, and surface features are in constant change or flux that is now irregular.
There are higher peaks than the tallest mountain on the earth's surface; one more lofty peak is Ecuador's Mount Chimborazo measured from the earth's core at 2,072 meters (6,800 feet) above Everest. A seamount called Hawaii's Mauna Kea is the tallest; a large part is underwater.
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