Groundbreaking Discovery: Ancient Oceanic Plate from Dinosaur Era Found Deep Within Earth

A strange part of the Earth’s bowels was recently identified by scientists from the University of Maryland, United States. This piece is an ancient oceanic plate from the Age of Dinosaurs that is hidden deep inside the Earth.

Through research published in the journal Science Advances, University of Maryland geologist Jinchuan Wang made observations using seismic data. He said this discovery raised many new questions.

“Our discovery opens up new questions about how the Earth’s interior can affect what we see on the surface, (with) over very long distances and timescales,” Wang said. announced by Science Alert.

Mysterious records from the Age of Dinosaurs

Wang’s research data was obtained by sending sound waves into the ground. These sound waves bounce off and create a seismic map.

As a result, Wang found a strange lump of the Earth’s crust that was moving very slowly under the Nazca Plate and the continental plate of South America. For reference, the Nazca Plate is a tectonic plate located in the eastern Pacific basin, specifically in the Southern Peru region.

Most of the Earth’s mass consists of hot silicate rocks between two regions of different temperatures. That is, the thin outer crust is cold and the core of the earth is very hot.

Meanwhile, the Earth’s mantle is a layer of minerals that usually melt and flow in cycles of tens of millions of years. The process can be very slow due to the extreme temperature differences in the Earth’s crust and core.

In the part of the mantle seen by Wang, the Nazca Plate continues to move and remove/stress the South American plate. At the same time, on the western side of the plate there is Eastern Pacific Race or rapidly growing oceanic ridges.

Eastern Pacific Race described by the Encyclopedia Britannica is a series of underwater volcanoes at the bottom of the southeast Pacific Ocean. Under the meeting Eastern Pacific Race and the Nazca Plate was discovered as a hot spot of geological activity.

And it was in this hot spot that the mysterious structural gap between the Central and Eastern Pacific was discovered. When denser, cooler material is pulled into the warmer interior, it undergoes a process called subduction.

In this region, Wang found that the material was sinking at about half the rate that he and his team had estimated. This finding indicates that there is a mantle transition zone that can act as a barrier.

“We found that, in this region, material sank at about half the rate we expected, which suggests that the mantle transition zone may be a barrier and material movement through the Earth,” said Wang.

This healthy lump is called Wang, which has been confirmed again as a plate structure, which is cooler and denser than the surrounding area. Identifying a piece of seabed fossil from ancient times.

“These thick areas look like fossilized traces of ancient seabeds that were brought into the Earth about 250 million years ago. This gives us an insight into the history of the Earth that we never knew before,” he said.

New Sources of Information in the Field of Geology

When discovered, the plate structure did not melt completely. You can see what remains of the Triassic Ocean that once existed and stands out. This part can stand out because the mantle layer has a hotter temperature. The process is called super plum.

Through geodynamic simulations, Wang’s team linked the geometry and structural stability of ancient scales. They also evaluated the interaction of the plate with other plates that were in motion.

The researchers suspect that this discovery could help to tell more about the history of the Nazca Plate or its own story about how it moved through the history of the Earth. By deciphering them, geologists can learn more about how planets can form the surfaces that people live on today.

“Looking at ancient transmission scales through this lens gives us new insight into the relationship between the Earth’s deep structure and surface geology, which was not clear before,” concluded Wang.

(det/nwk)