Pop-Up Mountains?

Two new studies by a University researcher show that mountain ranges rise faster than previously thought, causing geologists to rethink the way they date geologic formations.

Carmala Garzione, assistant professor of earth and environmental sciences, used two pioneering methods of measuring ancient mountain elevations and found that ranges can rise to their height in as little as 2 million years. Garzione focused on the atmospheric changes a mountain range encounters as it rises, which is documented in the sediment that erodes from the mountains.

“When I first showed this data to others, they had a hard time believing that mountains could pop up so quickly,” says Garzione.