A recent social media post is bringing renewed attention to a long-established geological fact about Mount Everest: the rock at the summit contains marine fossils, indicating that the highest point on Earth was once seafloor.
The post by David J. Harris Jr. states, “Mount Everest contains marine rocks, proving that the highest point on Earth was once at the bottom of the ocean,” and asks whether the Bible references something similar.
🚨WOW: Mount Everest contains marine rocks, proving that the highest point on Earth was once at the bottom of the ocean.
Doesn't the Bible mention something about that? pic.twitter.com/N3j8RoXZCa
— David J Harris Jr (@DavidJHarrisJr) August 7, 2026
Geological evidence confirms the claim.
The summit of Mount Everest is composed of the Qomolangma Formation, a Middle Ordovician limestone deposited roughly 450 million years ago in a warm, shallow tropical sea that formed part of the ancient Tethys Ocean. Samples collected near the summit contain fragments of marine invertebrates including trilobites, crinoids (sea lilies), and ostracods.
Geological Evidence from the Summit
In a 2005 study published in the journal Island Arc, researchers led by Harutaka Sakai examined limestone from the summit of Mount Qomolangma (the Tibetan name for Everest). The rock is a peloidal limestone containing skeletal remains of marine organisms. Equivalent strata lower on the mountain and in nearby sections have yielded brachiopods, conodonts, and other marine fossils.
The International Union of Geological Sciences (IUGS) recognizes the Ordovician rocks of Mount Everest as one of its First 100 Geological Heritage Sites. According to the IUGS, the summit limestone formed on an ancient seafloor and was later thrust upward when the Indian tectonic plate collided with the Eurasian plate beginning about 55 million years ago.
Climbers traversing the final summit pyramid walk across this lithified ancient seafloor. The limestone was deposited on the northern continental margin of India long before the Himalayan uplift began.
Biblical Account of Waters Covering Mountains
The social media post references the biblical flood narrative. Genesis 7:19-20 in the English Standard Version reads as follows:
“And the waters prevailed so mightily on the earth that all the high mountains under the whole heaven were covered. The waters prevailed above the mountains, covering them fifteen cubits deep.”
Scientific Explanation of the Uplift
Geologists attribute the presence of marine rocks at high altitude to plate tectonics rather than a single recent flood event. The Indian plate moved northward after the breakup of the supercontinent Gondwana and collided with Asia. The collision crumpled and elevated former seafloor sediments, including those now at the summit of Everest, to elevations exceeding 8,800 meters (29,000 feet). The process continues today, with the Himalayas still rising slowly.
Fossil assemblages and radiometric dating place the original deposition of the summit limestone in the Ordovician Period, hundreds of millions of years before the formation of the modern Himalayas.
Provided by Dallas Express
