How Do Mountains Stay Standing for Thousands of Years?

Mountains stay standing because they are strong enough to resist erosion. Imagine a mountain as a big, tall building made of rock and soil. Even though rain, wind, and snow slowly wear it away like sandpaper, the mountain is also growing from below, new rocks push up from deep inside Earth, helping it keep its shape for thousands of years.

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Examples

  1. A mountain is like a giant rock building that keeps getting new rocks from below to replace the ones worn away by wind and rain.
  2. Imagine a sandcastle at the beach, waves keep wearing it down, but more sand keeps coming up from below to fill in the gaps.
  3. Mountains are like trees that grow tall, but the ground pushes up more roots to keep them standing even as leaves fall off.

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Categories: Science · geology· earth science· mountains · Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License.