Random Thursday

We'll be getting back into mountain factoids in this segment of Weird But True by Leslie Gilbert Elman. It's amazing how many weird facts there are to learn about the oddest little things!

(image borrowed from Live Science)

There is a group of mountains known as the Seven Summits that most mountain climbers make a goal to climb. There is one mountain per continent, but there's also an eighth one if you count both Carstensz Pyramid in Paupa New Guinea and Mount Kosciuszko in Australia.

FUN FACT: Erik Weihenmayer lost his eyesight when he was 13, but he's the only person who has climbed all eight of the Seven Summits.

Whoa. I mean, just whoa!! Also note, this picture is just a random mountain picture, not necessarily one of the Seven Summits.

(image borrowed from TripSavvy)

Most mountain ranges are formed by the tectonic plates shifting beneath the Earth's surface. When these shifts happen, earthquakes can occur. It's said that what goes up, must come down. Geologists believe that the tectonic shifts are now causing the Apennines mountain range in Italy to collapse.

This is a mountain range in Peru, I wasn't reading ahead enough to look for specific ranges. I thought this was pretty! Lol. But still scary to think of all those shifting tectonic plates!

(image borrowed from Wikipedia)

Because of GPS technology, geophysicists determined that the entire city of Concepcion, Chile moved ten feet west in February 2010 when an earthquake occurred. The same quake caused Buenos Aires, Argentina to shift one inch to the west...which is 822 miles from Concepcion.

Whoa. An entire city moved ten feet?! That's nuts!

(image borrowed Time and Date)

That same earthquake mentioned above was measured at 8.8 magnitude and it ended up shifting the planet on its axis by three inches and shortened our days about 1.26 milliseconds.

We've lost time!!

(image borrowed from Wikipedia)

Every year the moon moves away from Earth by 1.5 inches.

Dude! That's a little scary.