Climate key to high mountains
AUG 13, 2009
DOI: 10.1063/PT.5.023594
The Guardian : The world’s highest mountains sit near the equator because colder climates are better at eroding peaks than had previously been realized, says David Egholm of Aarhus University in Denmark in Nature .Mountains are built by the collisions between continental plates that force land upwards between 1–10 mm per year.In colder climates, the snowline on mountains starts lower down, and erosion takes place at lower altitudes. At cold locations far from the equator, Egholm found, erosion by snow and ice easily matched any growth due to Earth’s plates crunching together.
Related Link Glacial effects limiting mountain height
© 2009 American Institute of Physics
