Can you...?

Question

List at least three facts that might explain the increase in summits of Everest as the years have gone by?

Answer 1

Let's use the analogy of a car versus a bulldozer. The car can certainly go much faster, but it doesn't have the power to push, pull or move the amount of dirt that the bulldozer does. The Earth's plates are so massive that themomentum that they have is very high. Momentum is velocity time mass, or p
= mV. Even though the velocity is a very very small number, the mass of atechtonic plate is so much higher that the momentum ends up being enormous! When two of these plates start pushing into each other, the dirt and rock that is in the interface can't hold up to that amount of pressure. So it ends up splitting and moving upward, thus creating mountains. Everest is so high because the two plates that are involve have been pushing the mountain up for so long and errosion has been minimal compared to the rate of growth of the mountain.