'Roof of the world' used to be in the middle of the sea

About 50 million years ago, Everest and hundreds of other peaks in the Himalayas used to be islands.

Later, the collision between the Eurasian continent and the Indian lithosphere turned them into mountains.

To prove this point, Shuhab Khan, geologist at the University of Houston (USA), and colleagues analyzed rock samples in an area in the northwest of the Himalayas. The team melted them down and studied magnetic parameters. The results show that rock samples in the Himalayas have the same amount of magnetism from the Earth's northern hemisphere. Experts say the area they collected samples of rock and soil was located near the equator and in the middle of the ancient ocean of Tethys.

Himalayas viewed from satellites outside Earth.Photo: wikipedia.com.

The team found many beryllium gems (blue) in the south of the Himalayas. Jade Berin is a mineral of beryllium - a metallic element found only in seawater. This shows that the peaks in the Himalayas used to be islands.

The Himalayas is a mountain range in Asia between the Indian subcontinent and the Tibetan plateau. This mountain range owns 14 of the highest peaks in the world (all reaching an altitude of over 8,000 m), including Everest. In addition, it has more than 100 mountain peaks with a height of over 7,200 m.

With a length of over 2,800 km, the Himalayas spread across 5 countries: Bhutan, China, India, Nepal and Pakistan. It is also the origin of the three major river systems in the world: the Indian River, the Ganges River and the Yangtze River. About 750 million people living in the river's basins originate in the Himalayas.