Recognizing that the top of Mt. Everest is made of limestone, we're seeing how this is really interesting because limestone derives from shells, which are found on the bottom of the ocean floor. Was the top of Mt. Everest once the bottom of an ocean? We've got some figuring out to do! Looking at some fossil maps from all over the world, we began to see some patterns:
It looks like lots of places all over the world have aquatic fossils on them, just like the top of Everest! Students were asked to model how this could have happened, especially knowing that GPS data is suggesting Mt. Everest is getting taller and shifting to the NE annually. Check out these three students' work:
We're thinking that the plates must have been moving and in totally different places millions of years ago (knowing they move cm/year). Since we've also figured out how plates can lift one another up, we think that this is now fossils that were once on the ocean floor (we did some figuring out about how they form in the first place) can then be higher up in say, a mountain!
Our thinking agrees with the thoughts of other scientists! Now we're onto to explaining why so little of Mt. Everest's seafloor is left on the top!
So what exactly is causing that seafloor atop Mt. Everest to shrink!?!?!