۶۵ - محض اطلاع

For the Record

What is the world’s tallest mountain and highest elevation? Of course, Mt. Everest, on the border of Nepal and Tibet, China, is the world’s tallest mountain and highest elevation with a peak at 29,035 feet (or 8850 m). The National Geographic Society revised the height of Mt. Everest in 1999 from 29,028 feet (or 8848 m) due to new GPS calculations.

What is the world’s tallest mountain from base to peak? Mauna Kea in Hawaii is the one.

Its base is on the sea floor, and it rises 33,480 feet (or 10,314 meters) in total, reaching 13,796 feet (or 4205 m) above sea level.

In reference to its towering height of 20,320 feet above sea level, Mt. McKinley in Alaska is the tallest mountain in North America. It has been named “The Roof of North America”

or “The Chimney of North America.”

Located about 55 kilometers drive from Amman, Jordan the Dead Sea in the Middle East region is the lowest point on Earth. The sunset touching distant hills with ribbons of fire across the waters of the Dead Sea brings a sense of unreality to culminate a day’s visit to the lowest point on earth, some 1,320 feet (or 400 meters) below sea level. En route a stone marker indicates “Sea Level,” but the Dead Sea itself is not reached before descending another 400 meters below this sign. As the name suggests, the sea is devoid of life due to an extremely high content of salts and minerals. But it is these natural elements which give the waters their curative powers, recognized since the days of Herod the Great, more than 2,000 years ago. They also provide the raw materials for the renowned Jordanian Dead Sea Bath Salts and cosmetic products which are marketed worldwide.

Badwater basin, the floor of Death Valley National Park in California, is the lowest point in the western hemisphere with 282 feet (or 85 meters) below sea level. Death Valley National Park, established in 1933, has more than 3.3 million acres of spectacular desert scenery, interesting and rare desert wildlife, complex geology, undisturbed wilderness, and sites of historical and cultural interest.