At almost 9,000 metres above sea level, Mount Everest seems about as far from an ocean as it is possible to get. Yet its summit rocks contain fossils of creatures that lived in an ancient sea. How can marine life that once lived near sea level end up preserved in the highest mountain on Earth? The answer takes us hundreds of millions of years into Earth's past — to a time when the Himalayas did not exist, India was somewhere else entirely, and the region around Everest was part of a warm marine environment. The Roof of the World Has Marine Fossils The upper rocks of Everest include limestone from the Qomolangma Formation, deposited during the Ordovician Period roughly 450–470 million years ago. Inside these rocks are fossils and fossil fragments from marine organisms. Among them are brachiopods, crinoids, trilobites and ostracods, along with other microscopic and shelly remains. So the popular claim that there are "seashells on Everest" isn't simply an internet myth....
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