Source: University of Hawaii
| Bibliographic Entry | Result (w/surrounding text) |
Standardized Result |
|---|---|---|
| Technology Lifts Everest to New Official Height. National Geographic Society. 11 November 1999. | "The revised elevation — 29,035 feet (8,850 meters) — was announced November 11, 1999 by Bradford Washburn, renowned mountain photographer/explorer and honorary director of Boston's Museum of Science, at the opening reception of the 87th annual meeting of the American Alpine Club." | 8,850 m (Everest) |
The value above is now recognized as the most accurate measurement of the altitude of Mount Everest.
| Bibliographic Entry | Result (w/surrounding text) |
Standardized Result |
|---|---|---|
| Geography of Guam. Official Guam Website. | "The highest point is Mount Lamlam with an elevation of 1,334 feet. The Peak of a submerged mountain, Guam, rises 37,820 feet above the floor of the Marianas Trench, the greatest ocean depth in the world." | 11,530 m (Lamlam) |
| National Geographic Atlas of the World. Sixth Edition. Washington, DC: National Geographic Society, 1999. | [Pacific Ocean Floor: page 105] "Challenger Deep, −10,924 (−35,839 ft), World's Greatest Ocean Depth" |
11,330 m (Lamlam) |
| [Islands of the Pacific: page 111] "Mount Lamlam 406" |
||
| [Pacific Ocean Floor: page 105] "West Mariana Basin, 4885 East Mariana Basin, 5984" |
5,300 m (Lamlam) |
The island of Guam is a territory of the United States lying in the western Pacific. Guam is the southernmost island in the Mariana chain. These islands lie on a subduction zone — a region where one tectonic plate (the heavier Pacific plate) is driven under another (the lighter Philippine plate). Subduction results in an oceanic trench trench forming on one side and a mountain range forming on the other. The mountain range formed at the Mariana subduction zone is not that impressive. The second tallest peak is Mount Lamlam on the island of Guam at 406 m. (The tallest peak is Ogso Tagpochau on Saipan at 465 m.) The mountains may not be that impressive, but the trench certainly is. The Challenger Deep on the Mariana Trench is the deepest point on the earth — 10,924 m below sea level. If we take the bottom of Challenger Deep as the base of Mount Lamlam it suddenly becomes the tallest mountain on earth.
406 m + 10,924 m = 11,330 m
Or so they say.
The Mariana Islands lie on a chain running from Farallon de Pajaros in the north to Guam in the south. The Mariana Trench lies to the east of the islands paralleling the chain until it reaches Guam where it makes a right angle turn and heads west. The Challenger Deep is about 400 km southwest of Guam on this perpendicular segment in a region known as the Southern Arc. Four hundred kilometers may not seem very far in oceanic terms, but lying in this gap are about a dozen underwater peaks adjacent to the Southern Arc. These submerged peaks are really the "mountains" lying next to the Challenger Deep.
Source: University of Hawaii
We have a real problem now. If we measure Mount Lamlam from the deepest point in the Mariana Trench adjacent to Guam, it is no longer taller than Mauna Kea (although it's probably still taller than Mount Everest). And if we measure the highest of the underwater peaks adjacent to the Challenger Deep from its deepest point we still don't beat Mauna Kea.
I would take this claim even further to task. There is no trench on the western edge of Guam, just a moderately deep basin (the appropriately named West Mariana Basin) with a maximum depth of 4885 m. Similarly, looking east beyond the trench we find a slightly deeper basin (the appropriately named East Mariana Basin) with a maximum depth of 5984 m. A profile through this region of the sea floor would look like a serpentine curve: initially flat but rising ever quicker to a narrow peak then rapidly dropping to a narrow trench that rises just as quickly back to flat again. If we take these basins as the "true" base of both Mount Lamlam and Challenger Deep respectively, a more accurate picture emerges. Mount Lamlam is roughly 5300 m tall from its western base to its peak and Challenger Deep is roughly 4900 m from its eastern base to its depths.
Mount Lamlam is tall, but certainly not the tallest mountain measured from base to peak.
Editor's Supplement -- 2003