a dizzying height of 29,030 ft. But the most amazing thing about this giant is that it's

still growing! Yep, Chomolungma, which is yet another name of the Everest, gets one-tenth

of an inch taller every year! But what if all mountains on Earth never stopped growing?

(What if YOU never stopped growing? Well that’s another video!)

So, let's imagine for a moment what life on Earth with ever-increasing mountains would

look like. One day you wake up to some breaking news.

It turns out that all the mountain ranges and peaks in the world have increased in size

overnight, and it doesn't look as if they're planning to stop anytime soon.

True to form, in a week or so, most mountains already reach the height of 10,000 ft. That's

when helicopters stop flying in particularly mountainous regions because the average altitude

a helicopter can climb is exactly around 10,000 ft.

When, in about a month, mountains reach the height of 40,000 ft, people realize that traveling

somewhere far away isn't as easy as it used to be. Because now, they can't just buy a

plane ticket — mostly because the majority of airplane routes are unavailable now. The

average cruising altitude of an airliner is 30,000 to 35,000 feet. Any higher, and there

is not enough oxygen in the air to fuel the engines, plus, the air itself becomes too

thin to hold the plane up. Surely, aircraft could try to find a way through a rocky maze

of the newly grown mountains, but it would be too risky and would endanger the lives

of everyone on board. So, if you need to get somewhere, you can drive or probably take

a train or a bus. Sailing has become dangerous as well because

not only the mountains on the surface of the planet have grown taller. There are more than

100,000 seamounts in the world, with about 30,000 of them in the Pacific Ocean. That's

why container and cruise ships rest in ports until people try to figure out safe routes

that won't end up in any shipwreck. But you should keep in mind that more than

90% of all the world's cargo is transported by sea! And that's oil, machine parts, equipment,

electronics, clothes and footwear, food and drinks, furniture, toys, and whatnot! And

since it's too dangerous for container ships to roam the waters of the world ocean, people

start to feel an acute shortage of many things they've forgotten how to live without.

Mountaineers are in distress because they can't conquer mountain peaks anymore. The

thing is that people start to feel altitude sickness already at the height of 8,000 ft.

And you need to be super-healthy and well-prepared to climb up to the peak of Mount Everest.

Only around 5,000 people have managed to conquer this peak so far. There, oxygen levels are

three times lower than they are at sea level. So, climbing any higher than Everest? Unlikely.

But with mountains growing taller and taller, there appears another serious problem. When

researchers calculated the weight of Mount Everest, it turned out to be around 357 trillion

pounds! And that's without the weight of snow and ice that cover the peak of the giant in

a thick layer. But even though Everest is already heavy beyond

belief, should it grow, it would be even heavier! It means that the mass of all other mountains

on Earth would be getting bigger and bigger as well! And the more substantial the mass

of something becomes, the stronger the gravity of this object gets.

So, in our fictional scenario, it's our planet's gravity that increases — and you can probably

imagine the consequences! Of course, it would depend on how much stronger the Earth's gravity

would become. But the chances are high that soon after mountains started to grow, you

would only be able to crawl around — forget about running or jumping! Birds wouldn't fly

anymore; high-rise buildings, bridges, and other man-made constructions, as well as tall

trees, would start to collapse. But the Earth's core has to deal with a more

dramatic challenge. It works non-stop holding around 6.5 sextillion tons of the planet's

mass. And once this load gets even heavier, the core might simply collapse inward, putting

an end to everything on the surface of the planet. Uh-oh, I don't like where my story

has taken us... Luckily, you'll never have to find out the

real-life consequences of mountains growing too tall on this planet — if only because

the mountains that exist on Earth will NEVER get significantly higher!

And one of the reasons is the very gravity I've already mentioned. But first, let's figure

out how mountains form! The Earth's crust — or the surface layer — is mobile and

dynamic. It's divided into ginormous pieces that move around as time passes. But there

are no street lights to control the movements of these pieces (also known as tectonic plates).

That's why from time to time, they collide, and the plates' touching edges get pushed

upward. Welcome, a newly-born mountain. (Wah!) By the way, that's exactly how Mount Everest

saw the light of day! But the tectonic plates don't stop. As if trying to find out which

one is stronger, they keep pushing against each other — and meanwhile, the mountain

grows taller! But one day, it becomes too tall and heavy to fight gravity, and the mass

of the mountain itself prevents it from growing up.

On the other hand, the collision of tectonic plates isn't the only way a mountain can form

— there are also volcanic mountains, like the ones on the Hawaiian Islands. For some

reason, in a particular place beneath the surface of the planet, there accumulates too

much magma, and it presses on the Earth's crust from the inside. At some point, all

this pressure blows up the crust and bursts outside in the streams of lava, fountains

of molten rock, and clouds of ash. Molten rock starts to pile up, and eventually, a

mountain is formed. But even in this case, gravity still doesn't let the mountain grow

too tall and heavy. In other words, if gravity on Earth was weaker,

mountains would grow higher, just like on Mars! The Red Planet is home to the tallest

mountain in the whole Solar System (or at least the one we know about) — Olympus Mons.

The height of this Martian giant is 82,020 ft, which is almost three times taller than

Everest! How come this mountain grew so tall? For one thing, eruptions occured more often

on Mars, and mountain-creating lava flows kept going on Mars way longer than here, on

Earth. Plus, the crust of the Red Planet isn't divided into tectonic plates. On Earth, the

movements of these plates distribute lava all over the planet and among different volcanoes.

But on Mars, where the crust doesn't move, all the lava gets piled up into one tremendous

volcano.

But let's return to our native planet and the second reason why mountains don't keep

growing. Surprisingly, it's... rivers! I used to think that rives, on the contrary, make

mountains look taller! They carve into the foot of a mountain and, by eroding some material,

leave deep crevices that emphasize those breathtaking and dramatic peaks! Apparently, I was wrong.

By eroding the materials a mountain is made of, rivers can trigger landslides — and

those don’t let the mountain grow as tall as it could otherwise.

But how about underwater mountains? They are already surrounded by water, so rivers can't

really influence them, right? Yeah, but don't forget about gravity and landslides! These

factors still have some influence on underwater mountains, even though it’s not that great.

Water has higher density than air and it better supports mountains against gravity. That's

the reason why underwater mountains are often way taller than those on the surface. For

example, an inactive volcano in Hawaii, Mauna Kea, is actually the world's tallest mountain

if you measure it from the base to its summit. Its height is 33,500 feet — a bit greater

than that of the Everest. But since the base of the volcano sits deep in the Pacific Ocean,

you can see only 13,796 ft of the mountain peeking above sea level. Aloha!

Hey, if you learned something new today, then give the video a like and share it with a

friend! And here are some other videos I think you'll enjoy. Just click to the left or right,

and stay on the Bright Side of life!