Directly comparing the two above sea level shows how this way of measuring heights can be misleading- but still accurate. Mount Kilimanjaro is Africa’s tallest mountain and the world’s largest free-standing mountain. Everest, located at 28 degrees north doesn’t even come close when measured this way. If you consider the tallest peak as “closest point on Earth to the sun,” Mount Chimborazo is your guy…or mountain. You see, our planet isn’t perfectly spherical- it bulges in the middle, like this beach ball! If we take this equatorial bulge into account, Mount Chimborazo, lying just one degree south of the equator in Ecuador, becomes the “world’s highest point above the center of the earth.” I swear this is the last fake out. Everest has a higher altitude, and Mauna Kea is taller- there is one mountain you’ve never heard of that beats them both as the highest point on Earth. Mount Everest is the worlds highest mountain lies on Nepal and Tibet border, with a height of 8848m above sea level, located in the Mahalangur Himal sub-range. Looking at the farthest point from the Earth’s center, however, would point you toward Mount Chimborazo in Ecuador, whose summit stands over 6,800 feet farther from the center of the Earth than Everest. Technically the tallest mountain on Earth, Mauna Kea’s peak is less than half as high as Mt. However, Mauna Kea in Hawaii is the tallest mountain from base to peak, at over 33,5000 feet. Mount Everest: Khumbu Icefall Everest is shaped like a three-sided pyramid. Khumbutse (21,867 feet 6,665 metres), Nuptse (25,791 feet 7,861 metres), and Lhotse (27,940 feet 8,516 metres) surround Everest’s base to the west and south. From its base well underneath the Pacific to the summit, Mauna Kea measures in at 33,484 feet- over 4 thousand feet taller than Mt. The peak of Changtse (24,803 feet 7,560 metres) rises to the north. While it towers roughly 14,000 feet above the island, much of its height lies submerged below sea level. That prize goes to Mauna Kea, a dormant volcano in Hawaii. There’s no denying that its elevation, or altitude, of 29,032 feet above sea level is greater than any other peak, but it is not the tallest mountain in the world.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |