by John Ford Shroder, Jr.

Mt. Everest is a mountain peak in the Himalayas of southern Asia, considered the highest mountain in the world. Mount Everest is situated at the edge of the Tibetan Plateau (Qing Zang Gaoyuan), on the border between Nepal and Tibet.

The mountain was named for Sir George Everest, a British military engineer who served as surveyor general of India from 1829 to 1843, during which time the peak was surveyed. Everest was the first person to record the location and height of the mountain, then known as Peak XV. Most Nepali people refer to the mountain as Sagarmatha, meaning "Forehead in the Sky." Speakers of Tibetan languages, including the Sherpa people of northern Nepal, refer to the mountain as Chomolungma, Tibetan for "Goddess Mother of the World."

In 1954, after various figures had been rejected, the height of Mount Everest was determined as 8848 m (29,028 ft). The mountain's actual height, and the claim that Everest is the highest mountain in the world, have been disputed. But additional surveys completed in the early 1990s continued to support evidence that Everest is the highest mountain in the world. In fact, the mountain is rising a few millimeters each year due to geological forces. Global Positioning Technology (GPS) has been installed on Mount Everest for the purpose of detecting slight rates of geological uplift. 

 
Geological Formation
 
Mount Everest, like the rest of the Himalayas, rose from the floor of the ancient Tethys Sea. The range was created when the Eurasian continental plate collided with the Indian subcontinental plate about 30 to 50 million years ago. Eventually the marine limestone was forced upward to become the characteristic yellow band on the top of Mount Everest. Beneath the shallow marine rock lies the highly metamorphosed black gneiss (foliated, or layered, rock) of the Precambrian era, a remnant of the original continental plates that collided and forced up the Himalayas.

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