Phys.org September 28, 2024 The Pacific large low-shear-velocity province (LLSVP) hosts multiple internal anomalies, including a notable gap between the central and eastern Pacific. The cause of the structural gap remains unconstrained. An international team of researchers (USA – University of Maryland, Canada) used a dense set of SS precursors (seismic waves) identify an anomalously thick mantle transition zone east of the East Pacific Rise directly above this structural gap. The area of the thickened transition zone exhibited faster-than-average velocities according to recent tomographic images, suggesting perturbed post olivine phase boundaries shifting in response to lowered temperatures. The researchers attributed […]
Category Archives: Geophysics
Gravity Is Still Shaping Earth’s Surface From Deep Within, New Study Finds
Science Alert October 17, 2022 Within extreme continental extension areas, ductile middle crust is exhumed at the surface as metamorphic core complexes. A team of researchers in the US (Columbia University, Stony Brook University, University of Houston, Purdue University) developed a general model for metamorphic core complexes formation and demonstrated that they resulted from the collapse of a mountain belt supported by a thickened crustal root. They showed that gravitational body forces generated by topography and crustal root caused an upward flow pattern of the ductile lower-middle crust, facilitated by a detachment surface evolving into low-angle normal fault. This detachment […]
Earth’s North Magnetic Pole Is Moving Fast, And We Might Finally Know Why
Science Alert April 23, 2019 Anchored by the north and south magnetic poles the magnetic field waxes and wanes in strength, undulating based on what’s going on in the core. The north magnetic pole movement made the World Magnetic Model – which tracks the field and informs compasses, smartphone GPS, and navigation systems on planes and ships. An international team of researchers (France, Denmark) attempted to simulate the physical conditions of Earth’s core by having supercomputers crunch 4 million hours’ worth of calculations. They found that sometimes there are pockets of liquid iron in the core that happen to be […]