When you think of the world’s highest peak, Mount Everest in the Himalayas, towering at over 8.840 meters, probably comes to mind. But what if I told you that our planet has mountains 100 times taller?
Scientists have discovered two peaks that, so to speak, “dwarf” mountains like Everest and K2.
Researchers from Utrecht University in the Netherlands revealed in a study that there are two colossal peaks reaching heights of nearly 620 miles (1.000 km). They are located 2.000 km beneath the Earth’s crust, and scientists say they are at least half a billion years old.
It is believed that these two peaks could play a significant role in our history, which science dates back to four billion years ago.
Despite the theory that these are mountains, lead scientist Dr. Arwen Deuss explained: “No one knows what they are or whether they are just a temporary phenomenon or have been ‘sitting’ there for millions or perhaps even billions of years.”
One peak is located beneath Africa, while the other lies beneath the Pacific Ocean. They are also surrounded by a massive “graveyard of tectonic plates transported there through a process called ‘subduction,’ where one tectonic plate sinks beneath another and descends from the Earth’s surface to depths of nearly three thousand kilometers (1.200 miles),” Deuss explained.
Photo: Brittanica
