by James Hunt
At almost 30,000 feet, Mount Everest may seem like it’s as tall and as high a mountain as has ever existed. But the title of Tallest Mountain all depends on how—and where—you make your measurements. Here are three competitors.
1. MAUNA KEA
The dormant volcano Mauna Kea in Hawaii is one of several known peaks that are arguably taller than Everest—as long as you’re willing to award the title of “tallest” based on a technicality.
Certainly, the highest point of Mauna Kea is definitely not higher than Everest’s. At 4205 meters (13,796 feet) above sea level, it’s less than half as high as Everest. So why is it such a good challenger for the accolade of tallest mountain? It all hinges on those three simple words: “above sea level.”
If you discard the water that surrounds Mauna Kea and measure the mountain from its underwater base—a measurement strangely called the “dry prominence,” or the solid bottom of all features—Mauna Kea is taller than Everest by almost 500 meters (1640 feet). Starting at the point where Mauna Kea begins to rise out of the surrounding crust, the mountain has a total height of around 9330 meters (30,610 feet). Since no part of Everest is submerged, its dry prominence is the same as its height above sea level. But if you could place the two mountains side-by-side, on a flat plane, Mauna Kea would indisputably be the taller of the two.
There are several factors that enable Mauna Kea to be taller than a mountain formed above sea level, but the main reasons are to do with the crust beneath it. Oceanic crust is denser than continental crust and therefore less prone to sag. It’s also a lot thinner than continental crust—about 4 to 6 miles thick, rather than 15 to 43 miles like continental crust.
By comparison, Everest has the heavy weight of a mountain sitting on top of the already heavy weight of continental crust. Since water is much less dense than rock, the oceanic crust below Mauna Kea is carrying less weight beneath sea level than the continental crust beneath Mount Everest. It can therefore support a higher prominence than would be possible above…
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