The mountain moves 100 km in half an hour

A mountain near the Montana-Wyoming state border (USA) once traveled 100 km in just 30 minutes in a horrific disaster that could repeat elsewhere in the world, scientists revealed.

Stone on the top of Heart Mountain is 250 million years older than its foot. That proves that the top and bottom of the mountain are not always tied together. The intense shift to the current position has confounded scientists for many years. They knew that the mountain left, but no one could explain how it happened and for how long.

Heart Mountain, on the picture, began to form with the Absaroka mountain range in the west about 50 million years ago.( Photo: NASA )

A new explanation comes from the ground, where lava boils to the surface and pushes the rock on its way amazingly fast.

Einat Aharonov, a geophysicist at the Weizmann Institute of Science, used a computer model to describe the state below Heart Mountain 50 million years ago. This period was one of the periods of mountain formation with many volcanic eruptions.

They found that Heart Mountain has a large number of vertical fractures (or longitudinal grooves). These vertical slots are filled with lava, rising through a layer of saturated limestone.

Lava from the grooves penetrates into the saturated rock layer, causing both ice and water to boil. This water is retained, and like in a pressure cooker, the higher the temperature, the higher the pressure. Because it is sandwiched between impervious layers, boiling water cannot escape. Finally, the pressure made it lift the rock, and the mountain began to slide.

" We think this slip must be terrifying. According to calculations, the shift only takes place in less than 30 minutes ," Aharonov said.

Heart Mountain is not the only mountain that can move. Aharonov warned that due to lying on one side of the volcano, the Canary Islands might soon crawl, threatening to cause a massive tsunami.

T. An