There appears to be an unexpected, ancient structure wrapped around Earth’s core.

There appears to be an unexpected, ancient structure wrapped around Earth’s core.

An ancient ocean floor that might encircle the core was discovered by the most detailed survey of the underlying geology under the Southern Hemisphere of Earth to date.

A research released in 2023 estimates that this thin but dense layer is located about 2,900 kilometers (1,800 miles) below the surface. At that depth, the rocky mantle above melts into the molten, metallic outer core. Core-mantle boundary (CMB) is this.

When the results were released, geologist Samantha Hansen of the University of Alabama stated, “We are finding that this structure is vastly more complicated than once thought. Seismic investigations, such as ours, provide the highest resolution imaging of the interior structure of our planet. .”

A thorough understanding of the subsurface is essential for researching a wide range of topics, including volcanic eruptions and changes in Earth’s magnetic field, which shields us from space radiation from the sun.

Hansen and her colleagues mapped seismic waves from earthquakes over a three-year period using 15 monitoring stations buried under Antarctic ice. The composition of the material inside Earth is revealed by the way those waves travel and bounce. These regions are known as ultralow velocity zones (ULVZs) because the sound waves there travel more slowly.

“Our high-definition imaging method found thin anomalous zones of material at the CMB everywhere we probed,” Arizona State University geophysicist Edward Garnero said after analyzing thousands of seismic recordings from Antarctica.

The thickness of the material varies from a few to [tens] of kilometers. This indicates that there may be mountains on the core that are up to five times higher than Mount Everest in certain locations.”
The researchers surmise that these ULVZs are probably oceanic crust that has been buried for millions of years.

The study’s models suggest that convection currents may have moved the old ocean floor to its present location, even though the sunken crust isn’t close to known subduction zones on the surface, which are areas where moving tectonic plates force rock down into Earth’s depth.

Seismic wave movement can lead to inaccurate assumptions about the sorts and movements of rocks, and the researchers are not ruling out alternative possibilities. For now, nevertheless, it appears that the ocean floor idea is the most plausible explanation for these ULVZs.

It’s also possible that the entire core is encircled by this old ocean crust, although it’s difficult to tell for sure because of how thin it is. Subsequent seismic surveys ought to contribute even more to the overall picture.

Geologists can use the discovery to better understand how heat escapes into the mantle from the hotter, denser core. In the area where we live, the compositional differences between these two layers are larger than those between the air above the solid surface rock.

“Our research provides important connections between shallow and deep Earth structure and the overall processes driving our planet,” stated Hansen.

read also: Researchers discover unusual organ preservation in fossil fishes from Brazil.

Geologists can use the discovery to better understand how heat escapes into the mantle from the hotter, denser core. In the area where we live, the compositional differences between these two layers are larger than those between the air above the solid surface rock.

Earth’s Core Seems to Be Wrapped in an Ancient, Unexpected Structure (msn.com)

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