How did the height of Mount Everest exceed 12000m?
Judging from the rock structure of Mount Everest, there are three main parts: the northern depression layer, the yellow belt layer and the Everest layer. So, when did the height of Mount Everest change dramatically? How long did this change take? To put it simply, geologists say that the historical height of Mount Everest once exceeded 12000 meters. Of course, this figure is not obtained by patting the head, but is calculated through the analysis of deformed rocks.
Geologists have observed the northern depression and found that there is a serious rock deformation reaction in this area. Moreover, the tensile rate of rocks in these areas is as high as 150%, and it is speculated that the time should have occurred before13 million years ago. At the same time, the deformed rocks that can be found in many places on Mount Everest directly confirm the geographical location of Mount Everest, which is actually located in the fault zone on the northern slope of the Himalayas.
If you think this statement is not simple enough, we might as well use specific data to illustrate it: I believe that as long as people with basic mathematical knowledge understand that if the side length of a square is 1, then when we directly increase its length to 1.5, its height will become 0.67.
Similarly, if the current height of the northern depression of Mount Everest is about 8000 meters above sea level, it should be 1 1900 meters. At the same time, the total height of the Yellow Belt and the Everest layer will not be less than 700 meters in theory, so it is inferred that the actual height of Mount Everest will exceed 12000 meters before the steep drop.
The truth of the sudden drop in the height of Mount Everest
There is no denying that the only constant in this world is that time is constantly changing. So any existence on the earth will change with the passage of time. The reason why it is difficult for us to perceive the changes of things around us at present is mainly because such changes often do not happen in an instant, but have accumulated over a relatively long period of time. Similarly, the height of the mountain will certainly change. Although we are used to most mountain landforms and don't pay attention to their changes, Everest is an exception.
In fact, the height of Mount Qomolangma has been accurately measured several times, and China achieved the first accurate measurement of Mount Qomolangma in 1975, and obtained the measurement data of the elevation of Mount Qomolangma recognized all over the world at 8848. 13m. As early as 1852, India has obtained that 8840 meters is the actual height of Mount Everest through the so-called enemy measurement method. When the time came to 1954, Indian geographers once again concluded that the elevation of Mount Everest should be 8848 meters from the area different from the previous position.
If you are also a person who is particularly interested in geological changes, you should also know that in the survey of Mount Everest in 2005, the data obtained by China is that the exact altitude of the rock sheet of Mount Everest is 8844.43 meters. We can see that there is an error of more than three meters between this figure and the measured result of 1975.
In fact, the change of this data is mainly because the ice thickness at the top of Mount Everest will change slightly all year round, and the technical means used in surveying and mapping in 2005 will be more advanced. And the height of 8844.43 meters does not include the height of the ice on the summit, just like the net height after we take off our shoes.
So, what is the truth that Mount Everest has dropped from more than 10,000 meters to more than 8,000 meters? Judging from the process of geological changes, the formation time of the Himalayas was about 65 million years ago, and the severe shrinkage of Mount Everest occurred about13 million years ago. It didn't take the same time to reduce the height of Mount Everest, which is several thousand meters high, but because faults and subsequent crustal movements contributed to the height and shape of Mount Everest today, not only because Mount Everest itself is too heavy, because it was originally located in the fault zone of the Himalayas.
It is probably human nature to like to challenge the limits, which is why even climbing Mount Everest will greatly threaten personal life, especially from the northern slope of China. However, in order to gain more convincing recognition from the world, our ancestors defended the sovereignty of the summit of Mount Everest regardless of their personal safety, and also created a miracle in the history of global mountaineering. Through our understanding of Mount Everest, we have a more scientific way to use natural resources, especially in special areas such as the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau.
How much does the wind and the sun affect the height of the mountain?
The saying that mountains will be lowered by wind, wind and sun may cause many people to cry. Because of these natural erosion processes, it is natural that the soil and sand on the top of the mountain will fall with the rain, although no one has really observed or measured whether the height of a mountain has changed. Then, can we fully prove the influence of wind, sun and the sun on mountain height from the true and reliable mountain height measurement data and the formation and change of mountains?
In the distant past, we humans did not participate in Mount Everest. However, from the data measurement results in recent decades, there is no obvious data change in the height of Mount Everest, and the only thing that will be obviously affected by wind, rain and the sun is the ice thickness at the summit. However, most of the mountains on the earth do not actually have the geological characteristics of Mount Everest, and the most dramatic height change of Mount Everest is mainly due to the fault zone and its own weight, which has little to do with the wind, rain and sun erosion that many people think.
For most of the mountains that don't snow all the year round, if rain erosion will have a significant impact on the height of the mountain, then the vegetation coverage rate of this mountain is particularly poor, because one of the biggest functions of vegetation is to maintain water and soil. Therefore, whether it is land desertification, environmental deterioration along the river basin or the occurrence of large-scale landslides in mountainous areas, it is often closely related to the serious destruction of vegetation diversity or richness, or the occurrence of natural disasters such as strong earthquakes and floods in this area.
But since we are talking about universal laws, of course, we should put aside these extreme factors. From the perspective of natural evolution alone, feng shui and sun exposure are really not enough to have a significant impact on the height of mountains. In real life, we can see the mountains standing alone on the earth's surface, and we can also see the mountains formed by the ups and downs of mountains. Their positions will have a great impact on the local landform and climate.
Mountains are high and low, but they are mainly formed by volcanism and collision of different plates. And the change of mountain height also has the difference between the main reason and the secondary factor:
First of all, mountains are really eroded by natural environment, such as rivers flowing at the foot of the mountain and special climate. Generally speaking, the altitude of a mountain is directly proportional to its snowfall frequency and wind intensity, but in general, their influence is difficult to highlight in our short personal life, which is why it is difficult for us to notice the obvious changes in the heights of surrounding mountains for decades.
From the formation principle of mountains, it can be seen that the change of terrain is actually mainly controlled by plate activity. After all, there are not active volcanoes everywhere on the earth, so the influence of volcanism on the formation and change of mountains is not universal. It is different from plate collision caused by continental drift. This geological activity is always accompanied by surface faults, folds, sedimentation and uplift.
The Himalayas where Mount Qomolangma is located began with the collision between the Australian plate and the Eurasian plate. It is the squeezing movement between these two plates that has created the majestic mountains and the world's first peak. That is to say, whether it is the formation of mountain landform or the great change of its shape, the high probability is caused by plate movement, and the low probability is the result of volcanic action, which can be confirmed from the geological characteristics of its location, but it is certain that this change has little to do with natural factors such as wind, rain and sun.