How do engineers work out the size of a mountain?

Question

Is an was it by triangulation?

Answer 1

if u're talking about the height of a mountain, then u do it by triangulation.  if u're talking about the volume of a mountain, then u have to do some surveying and draw the contour map of the mountain in increments.  if u want more accurate results, the increment would be small.  if u want an estimate, then use larger increments.  then divide the contour map into little squares and count them and then multiples the area by height of the contour and add them all up to obtain the volume.  i would use the sea level as a base line.

Answer 2

Height can be determined by survey or GPS, both of which rely on triangulation.

The biggest difficulty in triangulation is accounting for the curvature of the earth in any measurements.

More painstaking is use a level and rod. Here the problem is gravitation. Gravity is though to be straight down but in fact gravity pulls toward the greatest mass. The mountain therefore affects gravity by pulling objects towards it. This effect will skew measurements using level and rod in very small, hard to determine, increments.

Height can also be approximated by altimeter. Altimeter is not accurate enough to determine height without compensating for air pressure changes.

So the height of any mountain is not exactly known unless very careful very precise measurements are taken.