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Taller Everest moving towards China

John Poirier in Washington

Mount Everest, the world's highest mountain, is even taller than scientists previously thought, and is still growing.

Using sophisticated satellite systems, climbers measured Everest at 8,850 metres -- about five and a half miles high -- in May. That is seven feet above the previous official measurement of 8,848 metres, made back in 1954 by the Survey of India, scientists said yesterday.

''It's not that it's much higher but it's a more sophisticated understanding of the darn thing,'' Bradford Washburn, 89, a mountain explorer and honorary director of Boston's Museum of Science, which supported the expedition to Everest, told Reuters in a telephone interview.

The National Geographic Society, which also helped fund the expedition, said it would accept the new elevation and update its flat wall map of the mountain.

''National Geographic is accepting this new elevation for Everest because it is clearly the most authoritative and thoroughly executed measurement of the highest point on the earth's surface,'' Allan Carroll, the society's chief cartographer, said in a statement.

Washburn added that the data had been received with ''enthusiastic approval'' by the US National Imagery and Mapping Agency and China's National Bureau of Surveying and Mapping.

Washburn said a team of seven climbers, led by Pete Athans and Bill Crouse, measured the mountain on May 5, 1999, for a duration of 50 minutes, using sophisticated satellite-based technology, called the global positioning system.

Data was gathered using signals sent from orbiting GPS satellites to two GPS receivers -- one situated on Everest's summit and another placed at 26,000 feet.

Athans has reached the summit of Everest six times, a feat no other Westerner has surpassed. More than 180 people have died in attempts to reach the highest point on earth.

''It was pleasant on top of the world that morning, just a little wind and 12 (degrees) F below,'' Athans said. ''The equipment worked without a problem.''

The sophisticated technology has been used to gather data on the mountain over the past four years. The data has revealed some other fascinating features of Everest, situated in Asia's Himalayan mountain range, which spans parts of Tibet, China and northern India.

''We also know the mountain is moving steadily and gently toward China,'' Washburn said. ''It's not just Everest, the whole mountain range is all moving gently north-eastward and is slowly, steadily getting higher.''

Washburn said Everest is moving at a speed of two millimetres to six millimetres each year because India, which sits on a shifting plate, is being shoved under a plate that supports Nepal and China.

''It's forcing the mountain somewhat northward and as well as higher,'' Washburn said. ''The whole thing is a story of continental drift,'' he said, referring to ''plate-tectonics'', a theory based on the premise that the earth's surface is broken into a number of shifting plates or slabs.

Reuters

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