By this I mean a mountain that starts at sea level and goes to 10,000ft will be higher relatively than a mountain that starts at 7,000 feet and goes to 10,000 thousand.
In: 6
Technically speaking, Mauna Kea is the tallest mountain in the world at around 10,000 meters, but most of it is underwater.
Pick your definition:
* The peak of Everest is the highest relative to local(ish) sea level.
* The peak of Mauna Kea is the highest relative to its base.
* The peak of [Chimborazo](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chimborazo) is the furthest from the center of the Earth.
Mt. Everest is the highest point on earth by pure altitude. What you’re talking about is the difference in “prominence” or elevation above its relative surroundings. In that sense Everest isn’t the tallest.
*It turns out I’m not entirely correct because prominence is measured from a greater or equal peak. Since Everest has no equal peak, it is automatically the most prominent, even if it doesn’t look it from nearby.
Mt. Everest (8,848 m) is the highest by altitude (height above mean sea level).
Mt. Chimborazo (6,263 m) in Ecuador is the furthest surface point from the center of the earth. This is due to the fact that the Earth is not a perfect sphere, but bulges at the equator (the technical term is oblate spheroid).
Mauna Kea (4,207) in Hawaii is the tallest if you measure from base to peak, since its base is underwater. That height is 10,210 m.
But the king of all mountains isn’t on Earth, its on Mars.
Olympus Mons rises a staggering 21.9 km above the Martian equivalent of sea level (called the datum) and an even more impressive 26 km tall when measured from local base to height. It dwarfs anything on Earth. And its not just tall, its wide as well. Its base area is about 300,000 km^(2), roughly the size of Poland (312,696 km^(2) ) or Arizona (295,234 km^(2) ). The caldera at its peak has a radius of around 85 km, giving it a rough area of 23,000 km^(2), about the size of New Jersey (22,591 km^(2) ). But despite these massive numbers it would be, assuming you had a space suit, a relatively easy climb. Not only is gravity about 1/3 of earths, but the slope has an average grade of only 5%.
Mauna Kea, when you consider the base underwater, but the cool tidbit is Mt Whitney is nearly 15,000 feet above sea level and it’s only 90 miles from Death Valley, where it drops to a couple hundred feet below sea level. Lowest and highest points in the lower 48 cheek by jowl, as it were.
Latest Answers