Why aren’t there mountains that are 10 or 15 miles high on Earth?

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Mt Everest is just under 5.5miles high. Olympus Mons on Mars is 16 miles high. Why aren’t there much larger mountains on Earth? What’s the highest a mountain can go on Earth?

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Anonymous 0 Comments

Also, its not just gravity. Another factor has to do with how we measure elevation on Mars. Earth’s zero elevation is sea level. Mars has no sea level. In order to have a scientific reference, Mars’s zero elevation datum was chosen to be the elevation where the atmospheric pressure on Mars was at the triple point of water. That is where the atmospheric pressure is 610Pa. By comparison, Earth’s atmospheric pressure as sea level is 101,000Pa. Mars’s lowest elevation is 4.4 miles below Martian zero elevation, not nearly as as far below the zero elevation as earth’s oceans. When you start your yardsticks at different spots, you get different measurements.

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