SPACE — Most of Earth’s mantle is hot and dense, with rock that deforms slowly. But new research has found that about 93 miles or 150 kilometers below Earth’s surface lies a layer of molten rock.
“Finding this sticky layer will help researchers better understand how tectonic plates float on top of this layer of the mantle,” lead researcher Junlin Hua told Live Science, Friday, February 10, 2023. Hua is currently a postdoctoral researcher in geosciences at the University of Texas at Austin.
The melted rock is in the asthenosphere, which is the upper layer of the mantle that lies between 50 miles (80 km) and 124 miles (200 km) below Earth’s surface. The only way to get a peek at the mantle is by using seismic waves from earthquakes.
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Researchers can detect the waves at established seismic stations around the world, looking for subtle changes in the shape of the waves that indicate what type of material the waves traveled through. “Previously, researchers knew from these types of studies that some parts of the asthenosphere are hotter than others,” said Hua. According to him, uneven areas of melt have been detected, but little is known about how deep and extensive the melt is.
To find out, Hua and colleagues collected data from thousands of seismic waves detected at 716 stations around the world. They found that instead of holding small areas of melting, the asthenosphere appears to contain layers of melting that extend over the entire globe, at least 44 percent of the planet.
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Surprisingly, this melting layer doesn’t seem to affect the movement of the tectonic plates. The researchers found that the melt area did not affect the viscosity of the mantle, or its tendency to flow. Liquid rock is not more deformable than solid rock. “So counterintuitively, that melting even if it’s there, won’t affect how easily tectonic plates move over the asthenosphere,” Hua said.
The research results contain useful information for building computer models of how plates move. So far, researchers suspect the disbursement is not problematic. “But I think it encourages us to look at this melting as a marker of what’s going on on Earth, and not necessarily an active contribution to anything,” said Thorsten Becker, a geophysicist at UT Austin who was involved in the research.
“There is still much to be done to map this molten mantle layer,” said Hua. The researchers have published their findings in the journal Nature Geoscience on Monday, February 6, 2023. Source: Live Science
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