| [00:00.54] |
Measured from the sea floor, |
| [00:02.37] |
The wekiu's home is the tallest mountain in the world, |
| [00:06.52] |
Sbout a kilometre taller than Everest |
| [00:09.78] |
But it won't hold this record forever |
| [00:12.32] |
After millions of years of growth, |
| [00:14.86] |
This mountain is slowly but surely losing height |
| [00:18.44] |
At a rate of 20 centimetres every 100 years |
| [00:22.75] |
In fact, it's so massive that it's buckling the sea floor beneath it |
| [00:26.15] |
And sinking into the ocean |
| [00:29.61] |
Mauna Kea's future can be glimpsed in the Society Islands of French Polynesia |
| [00:36.14] |
The peaks of these islands once rose much higher than this from the ocean floor |
| [00:42.5] |
It's been almost 2 million years since their volcanoes first broke through the ocean |
| [00:47.53] |
But erosion is washing away their volcanic cores |
| [00:52.26] |
Now the only growth occurs just below sea level, |
| [00:55.85] |
On what was once the mountain's sloping flanks |
| [00:59.97] |
In the shallow waters around an island's base, |
| [01:02.85] |
Coral reefs rise towards the surface |