Dr. Tom Farr talks about some surprising findings concerning mountain erosion. Dr. Tom Farr is with NASA's Earth Science Enterprise at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory. But just in the last few years, it's been realized that landslides are a very important erosion mechanism in mountains. Rainfall or even earthquake-shaking can trigger huge chunks of dirt and rock to slide off the mountain. The actual act of erosion removes mass from the mountain range and that actually makes the mountain range a little bit lighter and allows the mountain range to float up a little bit, causing more uplift of the mountain range.
Mountains rest on Earth's mantle like a person sitting on a sofa.
The lighter you are, the less you squash down the cushion. I'm Deborah Byrd for Earth and Sky.