The highest mountain on Earth is in Hawaii

The mountains have always amazed the imagination of man and attracted to him a proud grandeur and fascinating beauty. Nobody can remain indifferent at the sight of mountain peaks covered with snow caps and wrapped in cloud covers. Who saw the mountains, even if not very high, will remember them for life. Can anything compare with this magnificence? Probably only higher mountains with even steeper slopes and snow-white glaciers sliding over them, with sharp peaks of peaks that stretch upward toward the bright sun and hide in the blue abyss of the sky.

The greatness of nature and its creations makes one think about many things. And not only about his being and life's problems, but also about what surrounds us. After all, we know so little about the world around us! And even what seems to us a long time known, it turns out to be not so unambiguous. For example, to the question of which is the highest mountain on Earth, many, without hesitation, will say that this is Everest. From the school bench we know even its height - 8848 meters. We also know its location - the Himalayas.

And is it really so?

The thing is that the mountain altitude values depend on the method of its measurement. If we consider the altitude above the level of the World Ocean, then, of course, the highest mountain on Earth is Jomolungma, also called Everest. Many argue that this peak continues to grow and its height has already reached 8852 meters. There is another opinion: Jomolungma decreases in size, it seems to sink into the earth's interior, so it became lower - 8841 meters. But anyway, Everest is considered the highest elevated summit of our planet.

But not everything is so simple. After all, the mountains are not only on land, but also under water. And if you measure the height from the foot to the top, it turns out that the highest mountain on Earth has an "increase" of about 10,000 meters. This giant is the symbol of the Hawaiian Islands - the Mauna Kea volcano.

At the first way of counting this mountain could not even get into the top ten most significant peaks of the world. And with the second method, the lower part of the mountain hidden in the waters of the Pacific Ocean is added to 4205 meters above sea level, resulting in a total height, which varies from 9750 to 10205 meters in different sources. But still it is much more than Everest. After all these calculations, the honorary title "The highest mountain on Earth" should be given to Mauna Kea.

Famous Stranger

The name of the volcano is translated as "White Mountain". Its top is hidden under a glacial cap, formed a long time ago. The snow cap of the mountain is constantly replenished with newly fallen snow, sometimes of many meters in thickness. Mauna Kea belongs to the centers of modern glaciation, as well as Elbrus - the highest mountain in the Caucasus.

Mauna Kea originated on the ocean floor at a time when, as a result of numerous volcanic eruptions, the whole Hawaiian archipelago was formed. Today the volcano is considered extinct, but its awakening is only a matter of time, since the process of mountain building on this section of the bottom of the Pacific Ocean continues to this day, and the highest mountain on Earth can still grow.