While in New Zealand, one of our tour guides told us that the New Zealand mountains are growing at a rate of 10 cm/yr but that erosion is also taking them down at the same rate so there is no net growth rates.

Does this seem reasonable? I've looked a tiny bit around but was unsuccessful.

Pete

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PJE

There's so much I don't know about astrophysics. I wish I had read that book by that wheelchair guy.

That seems awfully rapid. As I recall, the Himalayas are growing slower than that.

This page
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Himalaya
says 5 mm per year.

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"I'm as accurate as any psychic. And I'm a cartoon!" -- Squidward

"Arrrgh, the laws of physics be a harsh mistress!" -- Bender

Weird synchronicity.
Twenty minutes ago I started reading Worthy and Holdaway's The Lost World of the Moa: Prehistoric Life of New Zealand. They point out that the Southern Alps are very new and and rising very rapidly. However, because they intercept a lot of wet westerly winds, they take a big hit from erosion, too.
From their introduction:I'm guessing your guide mixed centimetres and millimetres, and should have said 10 mm a year, which looks like it might be a reasonable average for the whole range.

Grant Hutchison

My first thought was "that's a bit fast" -
it seems the tour guide is an order of magnitude out;
it's closer to 10 mm/yr, according to GNS Science (New Zealand):
- http://www.gns.cri.nz/what/earthact/...html#Measuring

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Thanks for the info, and it gets even better. I told my friends the other night that it was 10 metres/year! HA! What was I thinking? Good thing I'm not a banker...of by a factor of 1000 indeed

Pete

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PJE

There's so much I don't know about astrophysics. I wish I had read that book by that wheelchair guy.

Don't put yourself down Pete. Given their recent track record, I say you could be a star.

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PJE

There's so much I don't know about astrophysics. I wish I had read that book by that wheelchair guy.

I recall reading in John McPhee's The Control of Nature that the San Gabriel mountains in Southern California were the fastest rising in the world, but I couldn't find that exact statement when I flipped through the book just now, or at what rise rate he had them pegged. The San Gabriels are the result of a kink in the San Andreas fault - as the plates move relative to one another, that area gets squeezed and rock is pushed up. As with the New Zealand mountains, there's no net rise but rather lots of rock and mudslides.

The Tetons in Wyoming are extremely young, and there is a sharp vertical contrast. Their rate of differentiation is said to be about 10mm per year, over the past few millions of years, but some of that may be downthrusting of the adjacent areas.

It would be difficult, I think, to pin down an average rising rate for the San Gabriel mountains because of the fault-related movements - change is erratic and in 3 directions - but it would not be difficult to accept that the San Gabriels are (at least among) the fastest moving mountains ...

There seem to be a few claimants for fastest rising mountains (or mountain regions), inc Taiwan, the Southern Alps (NZ), the Himalayas, some parts of Oregon, and Nanga Parbat in Pakistan - how much is due to relative displacements (and against which benchmarks), and how much is due to local pride, I don't know ...

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there's a clear correlation between youth and speed ...

relative vertical motion of the Tetons seems to depend on where you study/who you ask ...
(wouldn't life be boring if everyone agreed?)

-http://www.winona.edu/geology/travel...ns/travel.html

back-of-envelope translation => ~ 11mm per decade ...

BUT (wait for it, there's more!)


- http://www.universityofcalifornia.edu/news/article/3469

or, 18mm per decade for the valley ...

go figure ...

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If it helps, that's what I learned in college geology, too. And, yes, there are lots of landslides down there. I've been into Eaton Canyon, in those mountains, and they look a lot different than other wilderness areas I've been in since in the Cascades. More shattered-looking.

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Gillian

"Now everyone was giving her that kind of look UFOlogists get when they suddenly say, 'Hey, if you shade your eyes you can see it is just a flock of geese after all.'"

"You can't erase icing."

"I can't believe it doesn't work! I found it on the internet, man!"

I thought that I read somewhere that K2 would overtake Everest as the highest mountain within 10,000 years, though I don't seem to be able to locate a source of this just now.

Since the height difference between the two is 230m, that would require K2 to rise by at least 23mm more than Everest per year.

I've been in the San Gabriels as well, although not too deep into them. "Shattered-looking" is a good description. 'Busticated' is the term we would have used in geology school.

Let's see:

Who invented "busticated".

G. K. Gilbert
No
Clarence Dutton
No
William Morris Davis (King of inventing geologic terms)
No
George W. Bush
No
Homer Simpson
No

But Google came up with 6110 hits.

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(By the way, I hate it that so many papers in the areas of planetary science and geology are not easily available to the dreaded "non-subscribers". It is like they are screaming at me: "YOU CAN'T HANDLE THE TRUTH". Good, I feel better now.)

"Quaerendo inventis"

I have said it, and am fairly sure I invented it independently. But the meaning I apply refers to large mounds of a more, though frequently not entirely, biological origin.

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I have said it, and am fairly sure I invented it independently. But the meaning I apply refers to large mounds of a more, though frequently not entirely, biological origin.

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Canada's tallest mountain has been "growing" fast recently.
http://www.terradaily.com/reports/Ca...spurt_999.html

Nice pair of posts. But I wonder if you didn't inject them for some form of an attempt at titlilation. If so we might think youre some kind of boob.

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(By the way, I hate it that so many papers in the areas of planetary science and geology are not easily available to the dreaded "non-subscribers". It is like they are screaming at me: "YOU CAN'T HANDLE THE TRUTH". Good, I feel better now.)

"Quaerendo inventis"