July 20, 2011 – Rock VS Snow
A disagreement between China and Nepal over the height of Mount Everest has led the Nepal government to move forward with a new measurement of the mountain.
A disagreement between China and Nepal over the height of Mount Everest has led the Nepal government to move forward with a new measurement of the mountain. While the two countries last year agreed that Mount Everest should be recognised as being 8,848 m tall, recent discussions exposed that each country was measuring a different Everest high-point. It seems that China prefers to measure the mountain’s rock height while Nepal feels the snow height should be measured. The Nepalese method would give a measurement that is four metres higher. The current widely-accepted 8,848m height of Everest is based on an 1955 Indian survey, but many geologists now believe that number and the height estimates of both countries could be wrong. Geologist think that the mountain is actually taller and continues to grow due to the shifting of the continental plates. A recent American GPS height study in 1999 concluded that Everest was actually 8,850 m tall.