Ecuador’s Chimborazo Volcano Claims World Record from Everest

Chimborazo Volcano
Pixabay

Source: latercera.com
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The Ecuadorian peak is the farthest from the center of the Earth. This change is attributed to the planet's equatorial bulge.

April 7, 2016.-

 Due to a difference of 1,811 meters, Mount Everest now has a new rival for the world record. Although Everest, located on the border between Nepal and China, remains the highest peak on Earth when measured from sea level, the last measurement by a team of French and Ecuadorian expeditioners who climbed to the top of Chimborazo Volcano revealed that it is the furthest point from the planet's core.

At 6,268 meters above sea level, the dormant volcano in Ecuador's Andes Mountains is the highest peak in the country. A new measurement using a GPS system, which was left on the summit for two hours, determined that Chimborazo is 6,384.416 kilometers from the center of the Earth, while Mount Everest is 6,382.605 kilometers.

This difference of nearly 2 kilometers is due to the Earth’s shape—flattened at the poles—which results in equatorial regions being farther from the planet’s center.

"Based on our experience, we know that areas near the equator are farther from the center of the Earth, but we lacked a precise measurement of the greatest distance from the center," explained Jean Mathieu Nocquet from the French Institute for Development Research (IRD) to the newspaper El País. 

This is why a team of French and Ecuadorian experts climbed to the top of Chimborazo in February of this year and installed a global positioning system (GPS) at the summit. The GPS, connected via a 60-centimeter antenna to 15 satellites from different countries, provides a more precise location.

“In order to obtain accurate data, we left the GPS in place for two hours and then processed the information stored during that period,” explained Mathiew Perrault from the Geophysical Institute (IG) to El País.

Furthermore, this new measurement determined that the Ecuadorian massif is 40 meters closer to the sun than Nevado Huascarán (in Peru), which ranks second in calculations from the center of the Earth.

Although Everest remains the highest peak when measuring from the planet's surface, the Earth's shape gives almost 2 kilometers of advantage to locations nearer the equator, which has given Chimborazo the new record.