Did river piracy add to Mouth Everest’s height? Frank Bienewald/LightRocket via Getty Images
An ancient act of “river piracy” may be partly responsible for Mount Everest’s soaring heights.
At 8849 metres, Mount Everest – also called Chomolungma or Sagarmāthā – is the world’s highest peak. Most of this stature is due to the tectonic uplift that formed the rest of the Himalayas. But Everest is an outlier, jutting above neighbouring giants by around 250 metres.
Matthew Fox at University College London and his colleagues considered how…
