For many years, scientists have been scratching their heads over two massive points of unexplained rock beneath the Earth’s surface.
Several theories have been put forward since its discovery in the 1980s, including claims that it may be huge Fragments from a strange world.
Each of the rocky blobs under the Earth’s crust is the size of a continent and 100 times taller than Mount Everest.
One is under Africa, and the other is under the Pacific Ocean.
In search of answers, a pair of experts have made some interesting new discoveries about the two massive populations.
As suspected, the point under Africa turned out to be much higher.
In fact, it’s twice as high as on the other side of the world, and it’s about 620 miles high.
And that’s not all.
Crucially, the scientists found that the mass of African rocks is less dense and less stable.
It’s not clear why things happened this way, but it could be a reason why there have been more supervolcanic eruptions on the continent over hundreds of millions of years, compared to their counterparts on the other side.
This instability can have a lot of repercussions on surface tectonics, as well earthquakes Qian Yuan, from Arizona State University, said.
These thermochemicals – formally known as Large Low Shear Velocity Provinces (LLSVPs) – have been studied by looking at data from seismic waves and running hundreds of simulations.
While we now know that they both have different compositions, we don’t yet understand how this affects the surrounding mantle, which is between the planet’s core and the crust.
More importantly, we are no closer to knowing where these mysterious spots come from.
“Our combination of seismic findings analysis and geodynamic modeling provides new insights into the nature of Earth’s largest structures in the deep interior and their interaction with the surrounding mantle,” Yuan added.
“This work has far-reaching implications for scientists trying to understand the current state and evolution of the deep mantle structure and the convective nature of the mantle.”
Thus, the investigation continues.
The search was published in natural earth sciences magazine.
This article originally appeared the sun It is reproduced here with permission.
