🚀 go-pugleaf

> There seems to be a limit to the height of the mountains...

The principle is correct, but the details get a little complicated...

Under pressure and high temperatures, most minerals undergo phase changes
---effectively becoming different minerals---that increase their ability to
withstand pressure and temperature.  Although obviously rare,
carbon-to-diamond is one almost everybody knows about.  Less well known are
minerals like perovskite that the various high-pressure labs around the
world have only recently been able to produce by duplicating
the extreme pressures and temperatures deep in the earth.

That Mt. Everest isn't near the theoretical limits of height for a mountain
should be obvious.  There are other mountains that---from their base to
peak---are higher (and there are mountain peaks further from the earth's
center as well).  Everest is just the mountain with the most elevation
above the earth's geoid (or, if you prefer a less precise term: above sea
level).

-- 
Bob Cunningham
bob@hig.hawaii.edu