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Gravitational Anomalies Beneath Mountains Point To Isostasy of Earth's Crust
StartsWithABang writes: Imagine you wanted to know what your acceleration was anywhere on Earth; imagine that simply saying "9.81 m/s^2" wasn't good enough. What would you need to account for? Sure, there are the obvious things: the Earth's rotation and its various altitudes and different points. Surely, the farther away you are from Earth's center, the less your acceleration's going to be. But what might come as a surprise is that if you went up to the peak of the highest mountains, not only would the acceleration due to gravity be its lowest, but there'd also be less mass beneath your feet than at any other location.
It's interesting the implications of this: we think of mountains as these giant, immovable things, culturally and linguistically used as a reference point of something solid and immutable. And yet, the reality is that they are comparably the soft fluffy marshmallows floating on top of a dense, thick liquid. I don't think it detracts from their majestic nature any, but I won't look at mountains the same, knowing they are in fact the "lighter" parts of the Earth - and the reminder that they float!
Science is fun, especially when it comes up with things that to the casual, uninformed observer are so counter-intuitive. This paints a beautiful picture.
Also, it goes to show that mountain-climbing is a great way to lose weight!