NARRATOR: Earth, a unique
planet, restless and dynamic. Continents shift and clash. Volcanoes erupt. Glaciers grow and recede. Titanic forces that are
constantly at work leaving a trail of geological
mysteries behind. This episode explores
Everest, the highest mountain on planet earth. In order to unlock its
secrets, a daring mission is undertaken to bring
back rocks from the summit. This journey of discovery
into the formation of Everest will uncover ancient fossils,
hidden crystals, epic weather, and immense structures etched
into the mountains, All. Part of the incredible story
of how the Earth was made. The Himalayas stretch
1,500 miles across Asia. They're home to 14 of
the tallest mountains on the planet. And one rises above all others. At five and a half miles tall,
Everest is the highest mountain in the world. In order to figure out how
this giant mountain was made, geologists need evidence,
rock samples from Everest. It's a dangerous mission,
and only a few people are willing to undertake it. Kenton Cool is one of the
world's best high altitude climbers, and he will embark
on this geological mission to the summit of Everest. His instructions from geologists
are to collect rock samples from three places, one from the
summit and two from lower down. These incredibly rare samples
will give investigators crucial evidence. Kenton is at Everest base camp. Pitched on jagged rocks at
17 and 1/2 thousand feet, this camp is over three
miles above sea level. So I have the last
of the items I need to take on the summit push. And I've just been to collect
a load of Ziploc bags, which I hope to put the samples in. NARRATOR: Over the
next five days, he will climb 12,000 feet,
the equivalent vertical height of eight Empire State Buildings. Kenton starts his
mission from base camp. He negotiates the Khumbu
Icefall, a frozen river with crevasses
thousands of feet deep. It's a treacherous ascent,
as all this glacial ice is constantly moving,
and looming ice towers threaten to collapse. Kenton now has the most
dangerous section ahead of him. At 21,000 feet, he is already
higher than Mount McKinley. He has a sheer ice climb
up the side of Everest. Winds reach speeds in
excess of 100 miles an hour, and temperatures drop
to minus 40 degrees. Since leaving base camp, Kenton
has climbed for four days. At 26,000 feet, he
reaches the point which joins Everest and its
neighboring mountain, Lhotse. So here we are. This is South Col, one of the
highest camps in the world, 7,950 meters. So high that nothing
can actually live here. NARRATOR: From this camp,
Kenton will leave at 3:00 AM, climb through the
night, and aim to arrive at the summit in the morning. Pish-plash about
3:00 in the morning. NARRATOR: Timing is crucial,
and the weather must be ideal. The window for ascent is narrow. There are only around 12 days of
the year when climbers can make it to the site. Kenton must take
this opportunity. He now ventures into what
climbers call the death zone. Oxygen is needed
to make the climb, as the air is three times
thinner than at sea level. 1 in 10 people die
climbing Everest. The most fatalities occur
during this final stage. KENTON COOL: One more. NARRATOR: Kenton finally
reaches the top of Everest. 8,850 meters. We're at the highest
peak in the world. NARRATOR: This is the view from
the highest place on planet Earth. For most climbers, the
summit is the ultimate goal, but for Kenton, his mission
has only just begun. He heads just below the
summit to find an exposed outcrop of rock. Kenton's first sample
is a gray limestone. It's soft and easy to break off. This is a sample of the
highest rock in the world. One down, two to go. Kenton descends further to
collect the next sample. Just below the summit,
the rock changes. Climbers call it
the yellow band, due to its distinctive color. The rock is dramatically
different from the summit, much harder and yellow in color. This is a layer of marble. KENTON COOL: All right. There we go. There's the yellow band. All right, so that's that. That's the yellow band. We've collected a
sample from here. It's not been very easy. We're getting out of here. It's beginning to snow. NARRATOR: But he
has one more to go. Kenton starts the long
descent to where he'll get the next piece of evidence. He enters into the Western Cwm,
a huge, U-shaped valley, which has been carved by the Khumbu
glacier, a frozen river of ice that has relentlessly pushed
downward over the past million years. Rock and debris in the
glacier have ground away at the rock underneath,
revealing the base of Everest. Kenton needs to take
his final sample from this area of distinctive
white rock, granite. So here we are
in the Western Cwm on Everest, about 6,400 meters. I've actually stood underneath
one of the easier outcrops to get to. This is a big granite
cliff above me. NARRATOR: This white
rock is full of crystals. It's extremely hard
and different, again, from the summit
limestone and the marble. KENTON COOL: Quite a nice
sample of the granite there. NARRATOR: With the three
precious samples safely packed away, Kenton takes them
to the University of Oxford. Here they will be analyzed by
the world's leading authority on Everest, Mike Searle. KENTON COOL: So Mike,
this is just summit rock. Now, that is from the top
of the-- top of the world. Well, this sample,
Kenton, is probably one of the most
important samples of the whole expedition. It's literally worth its
weight in gold geologically. This came from the summit
of Everest right there. The next rock down
that you collected was from the yellow band,
and even further down is another rock, granite. Almost a complete
picture of Everest. MIKE SEARLE: That's right, yes. Fantastic. NARRATOR: These three rocks
are the major components which make up Everest. All that effort to get up
to the summit I can tell you was absolutely worth
it to get this sample. KENTON COOL: Good, I hope so. The next step is we want
to find out what's in it. NARRATOR: The summit rock
is cut into a thin section. So thin light can
pass through it. OK, let's have a look at this
slide of the limestone that's from the summit of Everest. NARRATOR: The highest
rock sample in the world reveals its secret. Oh, that's interesting. We've got a section here
through a crinoid stem. Crinoid is a sea lily. NARRATOR: From fossil records,
the section can be dated. It is over 400
million years old. The sea lily is evidence that
the summit rock of Everest was formed in an ancient
marine environment. From seeing this evidence,
we can categorically say that this rock
would have started life at the bottom of the
sea floor, and then I've collected it from the very,
very top of the world, from the summit
of Everest itself. That's-- that's just amazing. NARRATOR: But a
mystery is revealed. How had rock with marine
fossils in it ended up on the top of Everest? The mission to collect
rock samples from Everest has uncovered two clues
as to how it formed. Samples show that the
mountain is made from three distinctive types of rock. Rock from the summit of Everest
contains marine fossils, proving it started life
on the bottom of the sea. To figure out how sea floor
came to be on top of the highest mountain in the
world, geologists need to find evidence that
is millions of years old, going back way before the
Himalayas were even formed. 400 million years ago, no
trace the Himalayas existed. The sea lily, now fossilized
on the summit of Everest, is proof that there
was once water where now this great mountain stands. But to figure out whether this
was just a shallow, inland sea or a great ocean,
geologist Mike Searle travels to the Himalayas. He begins the investigation
at the [inaudible] River. It flows down from the high
Himalayas and carries with it an intriguing clue. The rock I've got in
my hand at the moment may look a bit boring
and insignificant. It's just a pebble
taken from the river, but it's actually a key
clue as to the formation of the Himalayas and the
evolution of the rocks. It's almost, by magic,
but when you smash a rock like this
open, what it reveals inside is an absolutely
beautiful fossil, and this fossil is what
we call an ammonite. NARRATOR: This ancient creature
is part of the squid family. It's proof of a
complex ecosystem found in a deep ocean. MIKE SEARLE (VOICEOVER):
Giant squid swimming around in the seas that once lay
between India and Asia, and this is some
of the key evidence that we've got there was a major
ocean between the continents. NARRATOR: But to find marine
fossils in the high Himalayas and on the summit of Everest,
some immense geological force must have pushed the ocean
floor upwards above the water. Figuring out how this
happened has taken geologists over 100 years. The first lead in
this investigation came from an unlikely
place, Antarctica. In 1910, the renowned Antarctic
explorer, Robert Scott, began his ill-fated
expedition to the South Pole. After reaching the pole, Scott
and five of his team died. When the bodies were discovered,
among their equipment were carefully wrapped
and labeled fossils. The fossils were part of
an ancient plant called glossopteris, and specimens
are preserved at the British Antarctic Survey. Glossopteris is a type
of plant known as seed fern and from many different
lines of evidence, such has roots and leaves
and preserved trunks. Paleontologists think that
glossopteris was actually a type of tree. NARRATOR: Soon, this
humble tree fossil was found across the globe, in
India, South America, Africa, Madagascar, and Australia. Geologists now had a puzzle. How had this one species of
plant spread between continents separated by thousands
of miles of ocean? Glossopteris is a
very important fossil because it could not have
dispersed over vast distances. It couldn't have been
dispensed by the wind or by birds across oceans. NARRATOR: If glossopteris
couldn't cross oceans, then scientists were
left with one conclusion. When these trees were alive,
250 million years ago, the continents were
all joined together. They were part of a
supercontinent geologists call Gondwanaland. Glossopteris was able to spread
across this ancient landmass. But then Gondwana was split
up by violent tectonic forces, which pushed the
continents apart, and 80 million years
ago, India broke away from the supercontinent. It traveled north and
eventually smashed into Asia. To get the full
picture, geologists now knew they must get an exact
date for this collision. Once again, they turned
to marine fossils. We know the age of
collision of India and Asia from several factors, but
the most important one is the age of the youngest
marine fossils that are preserved along
that collision belt. And the age of those
fossils is very precisely dated 50.5 million years. NARRATOR: 80 million years
ago, India left Gondwana. 50.5 billion years
ago, it hit Asia. India traveled 4,000 miles
in just 30 million years, very fast in geological time. MIKE SEARLE: India was
drifting northwards across the Indian Ocean at very
rapid plate tectonics speeds, and we're talking here between
10 and 12 inches per year, which is very rapid. NARRATOR: It's this
speed that goes some way to explain the unique
size of the Himalayas, because as with any smash,
the faster the collision, the bigger the wreck. The investigation has
now uncovered clues to prove India and Asia
were once separate. Ammonites are evidence
that an ocean once existed between India and Asia. Glossopteris fossils
prove that India was once part of a supercontinent
called Gondwanaland. The next part of
the investigation is to discover how this
intercontinental smash gave rise to the tallest
mountain in the world. Geologists piecing together the
story of how Everest was made have shown that 400 million
years ago, a wide ocean existed where the Himalayas now stand. India was part of Gondwanaland
until 80 million years ago when violent tectonic forces
threw the planet into turmoil and split up this
ancient landmass, pushing India northwards. 50 million years ago,
India collided with Asia, and for the next
30 million years, this intercontinental smash
began to shape the world's highest mountains. Traces of the first
stage in this process can still be seen in
the Himalayas today. The best way to spot
them is from the air. Because the high Himalayas
are so incredibly inaccessible-- I mean, just look at
that view out there-- there's a sea of mountains. All of them are
over 20,000 feet. There must be hundreds of them. And those are impossible
mountains for a mere mortals to climb. NARRATOR: This is geology
on a massive scale. The distinctive
formations come into view. Huge folds of rock, clearly seen
on the sides of the mountains. All of these folds that we're
seeing right here on Dhaulagiri and Tukuche Peak were
formed during the first pass of the Himalayan mountain
building process. So when India first
collided with Asia, the first thing to happen was
the northern margin of India started buckling and folding. And those folds are
just so spectacular. When you look out
the window here, they're just
unbelievably impressive. NARRATOR: Like a
giant train wreck, India collided with Asia. The land and ocean floor
that lay between literally folded up under the
enormous pressure. But folds are only
part of the story. Alone, they don't explain
the Himalayas' vast size. Back on the trail, Searle is
on the hunt for further clues. This is what makes the
whole trip really worthwhile. We've just spent five days
hiking up through the jungle through the forest,
pouring with rain, and up there, finally,
are the high Himalayas. I just love those mountains. Look at those peaks up there. They are absolutely beautiful. NARRATOR: Searle points to an
intriguing giant scar, which is revealed on the face
of one of the mountains. It's evidence of the next
dramatic phase in the building of the Himalayas. This is a sketch of what we're
actually seeing in front of us with the big mountain
of Dhaulagiri here and the big folds on the peak
of Tukuche, to the right, with this enormous great fault
that is magnificently exposed right along the
base of Dhaulagiri, coming right down to the
Kali Gandaki River Valley at the bottom. NARRATOR: The fault is a
fracture, running right through the mountains. The first step in the forming
the Himalayas is the rocks have folded. It's giant folds. When that process continues,
the rock can no longer fold, so they become overturned folds. And when the process
continues even further, that overturned fold actually
moves along a very discrete fault plane, and that's
exactly what we see throughout the whole Himalayas. So rocks are formed by
folding and thrusting. NARRATOR: Rocks can
only be bent so far. Once rock has been
bent beyond its limits, it breaks and causes a fault.
The process of faulting puts different rock types
one on top of the other. MIKE SEARLE: Faults
are juxtaposed rocks of two different types. So the big huge fault
that cuts through the tops of the high Himalayas,
the top of Everest are rocks that are putting
lime stones over marble. NARRATOR: This is exactly what
was revealed by Kenton's rock samples from Everest. Lime stones at the summit,
lying on top of the hard marble of the yellow band, evidence
that the top of Everest was initially created
by folding and faulting. But this only explains
part of the story. To create a mountain
the size of Everest, geologists knew that there
must have been another, more powerful mountain
building process at work. Clues to exactly
what this process was can be found in the
[inaudible] River. MIKE SEARLE: This river
is a giant garbage chute, bringing all these boulders
eroded off the high Himalayas to the north and
sweeping them down in great floods down to the
plains of India to the south. So this was a great place to
come to sample all the rocks that make up the high
mountains to the north. NARRATOR: As any detective
knows, some of the best finds are made by sifting
through garbage. This time, it's garbage
from the Himalayan peaks. This is exactly the rock
I've been looking for. This is a beautiful example
of a kyanite gneiss, which is composed of these
beautiful blue bladed crystals of kyanite. NARRATOR: Kyanite is a gemstone,
and it gives a clue as to how these rocks formed. This mineral is very
specific to a geologist, and it tells us that this
rock has been buried to depths of about 30 miles or more
under high temperature and high pressure. NARRATOR: Rock was not
only pushed upwards by the collision, but also
down towards the Earth's molten core. Heat and pressure
changed the rock and formed kyanite crystals. Another boulder in the
river gives a further clue as to what was going on
at these great depths. MIKE SEARLE: This white
rock is a Himalayan granite, and most of the highest
peaks of the Himalayas are actually formed
of this rock. And of course, the
base of Everest is formed is exactly the same. The presence of
these white streaks tell me that this rock was
actually partially molten at the highest temperatures
during the Himalayan mountain building process. NARRATOR: The rock was pushed so
far beneath the Earth's surface that it reached heat in excess
of 4,000 degrees Fahrenheit and began to melt.
Once it was molten, it was able to move and flow. MIKE SEARLE: Well, you can
think of the Himalayas more as a conveyor belt system,
taking Indian plate rocks, pushing them down
deep in the crust. They are altered by heating and
increasing pressure, eventually melting to produce granite
and then forced them back up to the surface along
these giant sheer planes. NARRATOR: 20 million years
ago, this amazing conveyor belt system was at work. As India pushed northwards,
a liquid band of buoyant rock was forced towards the
surface and cooled, forming a solid
layer of granite, a process called channel flow. MIKE SEARLE: Granite's
a very buoyant rock, so when they're formed by
partial melting of the crust, normally, they're pushed
up through the crust to form mountain ranges
like you see in the Sierra Nevada, Yosemite National
Park, for example. The Himalayas are different. These granites are flowing
almost horizontally from where they formed the
southern part of the Tibetan plateau to form the high
peaks of the Himalayas, and it's this
conveyor belt system that keeps the high Himalayas
actively uplifting to this day. NARRATOR: The mountains
were repeatedly jacked up to epic proportions. It's this unique process, which
accounts for the Himalayas' immense size. Kenton Cool's mission to Everest
uncovered an unusually thick band of granite, proof
that Everest's awesome size is due to the process
of channel flow. Geologists investigating
how Everest was built have discovered
folds and faults, proof of the initial
mountain building process. White stripes of granite
indicate the rock was melted at over 4,000 degrees, forming a
giant conveyor belt of mountain building power. But the Himalayas were
set to become part of a geological battle between
catastrophic forces and powers, which would challenge the
very height of Everest. 400 million years
ago, the Himalayas started out life at the
bottom of an immense ocean. 50 million years ago, they
were thrust into the skies as India smashed into
the Asian landmass. Since that time, tectonic
forces have created the tallest mountain in the world. But what of the
immediate future? Will Everest continue to
rise, or will this giant soon be cut down? John Galetska is investigating
whether the processes which built Everest
continue to this day. He has traveled to the remotest
regions of Nepal and India, setting up GPS stations, which
he hopes will provide him with the answer. All right, come as
far as I can by car, and I've got a three hour
walk straight up the slope. [non-english speech] NARRATOR: Just like
a GPS in a car, this station is able to pick
up signals from satellites and monitor any
movement of the ground. The GPS station has been
operating continuously for the last five years. So every second of every day of
every month of every year, it's taking a data sample,
and what it's looking for is changes in the position of
where the station is, but how it's moving the velocity of
the station, believe it or not, and even changes in velocity. The readings from the GPS show
that India is still moving about two inches every year. 50 million years after
its initial collision, it is still on its relentless
journey northwards, pushing underneath Asia. And as it does so, Everest
continues to be pushed higher. But there is a dark consequence
to this mountain building, earthquakes. JOHN GALETSKA: So what's going
on here in the Nepali Himalaya, we've got the Indian
tectonic plates sort of ramming into Asia. In this case, India
is losing out. It's being forced under
Asia, but it's unfortunate that they're locked
frictionally, and eventually, over the course of
hundreds of years, that strain is accumulated
and then released suddenly in a giant earthquake. NARRATOR: The Himalayas have
seen 15 major earthquakes in the past 100 years. The most recent to hit was
in Pakistan October 8, 2005. The quake devastated the region. Galetska's readings show
that another earthquake is on its way. Kathmandu, the capital of
Nepal, lies in the center of the danger zone. When that earthquake
happens, not if, when that earthquake
happens, it's going to be several
minutes of terror. There'll be strong
shaking in Kathmandu. There'll be
collapsed structures. You'll see landslides
on all these mountains. It's going to be
complete devastation. 26 million people in
Nepal, 50 million people along the whole arc of
the Himalayan range, all of these people
will be affected. NARRATOR: These
devastating earthquakes are the result of a very active
mountain belt, further evidence that Everest is being
actively pushed upward. But there is a
second force at work in these mountains, erosion. There's a constant
battle going on in nature here between the
uplift of the Himalayas and the down cutting of erosion. NARRATOR: Erosion in the
Himalayas is ferocious. A clue as to the reason why lies
in a small village 300 miles east of Everest, Cherrapunji. It's the wettest
place on planet Earth, averaging over 432
inches of rain each year. This place is 12 times
wetter than Seattle and the reason for all
this rain, the monsoon. MIKE SEARLE: The Indian monsoon
system is an almost unique system on the planet, and
the ultimate driving force is that high mountains
and the high Himalayas and the Tibetan plateau,
which is by far the largest area of high elevation
on the planet today, and that causes this
massive high pressure system during the summer months,
which results in the sucking in of all the warm, moist
air from the Indian Ocean. NARRATOR: This seasonal weather
system blows in across India. Clouds build and rise, as
they hit the high mountains and form heavy rains,
which fall across India. Those rains reached their
maximum on the southern slopes of the Himalayas. During the height
of the summer monsoon, some of these rivers are able
to rise by 20 or 30 feet in one storm. So where I'm standing now,
the levels of the river will be way up over here. NARRATOR: Each year, 264
cubic miles of fresh water, enough to fill Hoover Dam's
Lake Mead 30 times over, pours down the slopes
of the mountains. This water feeds some of the
largest rivers in the world, the Ganges, the Indus, the
Irrawaddy, and the Yangtze. The Himalayas are the
water tower of Asia, supplying fresh water to a
fifth of the world's population. But all this water is
having a dramatic effect on the mountains. Fast flowing rivers cut
steep sided valleys. High in the
mountains, rain turns to snow, feeding glaciers, which
carve into the upper slopes. All these forces are at
work today, wearing away at the Himalayan peaks. Because the monsoon
is so powerful, geologists suspect that
Everest and the Himalayas are being worn away perhaps more
quickly than any other mountain belt in the world. Since 2004, a
powerful new technique has emerged that can actually
measure how fast a mountain is being worn away. It uses high energy
particles from space. LEWIS OWEN: At
present, we're all being bombarded by cosmic rays. They come from distant
parts of the galaxy. NARRATOR: When these
particles hit a rock surface, a chemical change happens. It's like a kind
of cosmic sunburn. Erosion from rivers and
glaciers expose rock surfaces to these cosmic rays, and
just like sunburn, the longer the rock is exposed, the greater
the damage to its surface. By measuring the amount of
cosmic sunburn in the rocks, geologists can figure out how
quickly rivers and glaciers are cutting into the mountains. But working this out needs
very precise science. The concentrations that
we're trying to measure are so small that equivalent to
a pinch of salt in an Olympic size swimming pool and measuring
one or two grains of that salt. NARRATOR: After
years of research, Owen has discovered the
maximum speed of erosion, 1.1 inches per year. That's six times faster
than the Rocky Mountains and faster than anywhere
else on the planet. MIKE SEARLE: All mountains
suffer from erosion. They're built up
by tectonic forces, and erosion wipes
them down again. The Alps, the Rocky
Mountains, the Andes all have erosional potential,
but nowhere has such huge erosional
potential as the Himalayas. The erosion here is far
greater than anywhere else, and the main reason for
that is the summer monsoon. NARRATOR: The battle in nature
between uplift and erosion continues, but the question
remains, which one is winning. Is Everest shrinking or growing? In 1999, a team of
geologists set out to answer this question. They placed a small GPS station
near to the summit of Everest. After two years of monitoring,
the team had their answer. Everest was, in fact,
still growing a quarter of an inch every year. The world's tallest mountain
is still getting taller. The investigation into
the growth and movement of the Himalayas has revealed
the following evidence. GPS data shows a very
active mountain belt that is still uplifting. Cosmic ray dating proves that
the Himalayas are being eroded faster than any
place else on Earth. Geologists now have the tools
to predict Everest's future. It and the Himalayan mountain
chain will continue to rise. Aided by new technology,
discoveries are still being made in the
Himalayas, and recently, one reveals that the rise
of these mountains was so immense that it might
have changed the very course of Earth's history and
plunged the entire planet into a deep freeze. Everest, 50 million
years in the making. Today, the Himalayas stand as
the biggest, highest, and most active mountain
range on the planet. They are mountains of
superlatives, the deepest valley falling over 20,000
vertical feet, the highest plateau, the longest sheer rock
face, hundreds of peaks higher than anywhere else on Earth,
and many have never even been named. The formation of
the Himalayas has changed the entire landscape,
an epic evolution from ocean to immense mountain range and
created one of the world's most important weather systems,
the monsoon, which supplies fresh water to
one fifth of the world's population. LEWIS OWEN: The
Himalayas in Tibet are a really exciting place
to work for a geologist just because it's such an
active and dynamic environment. Not only that, it's a very
important area climatically. NARRATOR: Scientists
investigating the Himalayas have uncovered some surprising
results, discoveries which would suggest that the
rise of the Himalayas might have had an impact on the
climate of the entire planet. The discovery came about
almost by accident, while scientists were studying
a process called chemical weathering. Every time it rains, carbon
dioxide in the atmosphere dissolves to form acid rain. When the rain falls, it
eats away at rock surfaces. This weathering process takes
CO2 out of the atmosphere and locks it away in the rocks. LEWIS OWEN: As that
rock is interacting with the atmosphere, it pulls
down carbon dioxide, and that leads to a negative greenhouse
effect, if you like, an icehouse effect. So you get more weathering, you
pull down that carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere,
and that leads to cooling. The more CO2 there is in
the atmosphere, the warmer the global temperatures. Take CO2 out of the atmosphere
and temperatures are reduced. Then scientists discovered
a major coincidence. The dramatic rise of the
Himalayas over the past 20 million years coincided
with the gradual fall of global temperatures,
which led to the start of the last major Ice Age. The pieces of the
puzzle fell into place. As the Himalayas
uplifted, they had acted like an
ever-growing giant sponge and absorbed massive amounts
of CO2 from the atmosphere. The uplift of the
Himalayas in Tibet lead into the drawdown
of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere by
these weathering processes. It was probably one of
the major factors in lead into the cooling that culminated
in the Ice Age that started about 2 and 1/2 million
years before present. NARRATOR: A cooling effect,
which was so intense, that 2.5 million years
ago, it contributed to a global deep freeze,
an Ice Age that affected the entire planet and had a
dramatic impact on all life on Earth. And geologists are sure that
the Himalayas will continue to exert an immense
influence on our planet as these mountains
are still growing. As India pushes
northwards under Asia, the building cycle continues. More mountains will form. Over the next 10 million
years, 300 miles of land will be forced under Asia. The entire range will
grow even taller. Out in this vast
wilderness of icy peaks, geologists are still
making discoveries. LEWIS OWEN: For geologists,
it's exciting in terms of the science because you get
to areas where few geologists have been before. NARRATOR: As the research
continues at Everest and across the Himalayas, it
is a wonder what secrets they might tell us in the future. The evidence for Everest's
incredible geological journey has been revealed. Ammonites, evidence
that an ocean once existed between India and
Asia and that the continents collided 50.5 million years
ago, folds and faults, proof of the initial mountain
building process, granite, evidence of a giant
conveyor belt of mountain building power which pushed
Everest to its immense height. GPS data reveals that the
Himalayas are the most active mountain range on the planet,
and Everest is still growing. Everest today stands as the
highest place on planet Earth. But in millions
of years to come, there will, perhaps, be
another mountain big enough to challenge this giant, living
proof that the Earth is never at rest.
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