Now here's a question for ya: highest mountain ever

So I was reading about Scandinavian geology earlier, as I frequently do of a Wednesday afternoon, and came across the information that the highest mountains in Norway are now roughly one fifth their highest height - which means they would once have been 40,500 feet high, considerably taller than Everest which is "merely" 29,029 feet (and still growing).

That got me wondering how high the highest mountain ever on Earth was. I've found one site claiming the Toba supervolcano could have been as high as 114,829 feet, but it also had some articles on cautionary messages encoded into various natural features by aliens so I didn't take it very seriously. So far, I can't find anything a bit more "real science" rather than "new science" on the subject. Anyone know?

Gog Magogs?

I get a nose bleed walking up those beauties.

Could be. I prefer not to go there for fear of yetis.

don't underestimate the reliability of cautionary advice encoded in to natural features by aliens... if I'd listened I wouldn't have burned the roof of my mouth on that microwavable pizza, and Americans wouldn't have aggravated the world by creating and then refusing to stop using the word guestimate (although they still would have been disliked for bombing things - the aliens don't even mention bombs).

A bunch of random Google hits just for the heck of it:

http://hypertextbook.com/facts/2001/BeataUnke.shtml

"Mountains are generally measured from sea level, in which case Mount Everest (29,028 feet; 8,848 meters) is king."

"Hawaii's Mauna Kea, though, rises an astonishing 33,476 feet (10,203 meters) from the depths of the Pacific Ocean floor. Measuring from base to peak, Mauna Kea is the tallest mountain on earth."

"A third way to determine the world's highest mountain is to measure the distance from the center of the earth to the peak. Using this method, Chimborazo in the Andes triumphs. Although it stands but 20,561 feet (6,267 meters) above sea level, its peak is the farthest from the earth's center."

http://www.last-word.com/content_handling/show_tree/tree_id/1988.html

I read somewhere that the Scottish Highlands or the Snowdonia mountains would originally have been as tall as the Himalayas but they have become eroded.

Not on earth, but Olympus Mons is 22km tall. Arthur C Clarke put it nicely and described it as a bit boring. To walk up it you'd have no sense of scale so it's basically hundreds of miles of gently sloping plain. Earth mountains are clearly much better.

don't underestimate the reliability of cautionary advice encoded in to natural features by aliens...

Hmm. There is that Nazca geoglyph, I suppose...

Not on earth, but Olympus Mons is 22km tall. Arthur C Clarke put it nicely and described it as a bit boring. To walk up it you'd have no sense of scale so it's basically hundreds of miles of gently sloping plain. Earth mountains are clearly much better.

Imagine riding your bike down it though.

^ Zoobombing :)

Yep. Ideal place for it.

be a sod though learning to ride in zero gravity

Also unnecessary if you want to ride on Mars, of course. ;-)

There would be thinner air so they'd be less air resistance too. No thorns to get punctures from either.

But who needs thorns when you're riding over hundreds of miles of sharp, uneroded rock and sand?

I reckon you'd definitely want a dry wax lubricant rather than oil on your chain.

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Are you thinking of Mauna Kea?

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