Members of the scientific community have recently been fascinated by the structure of the Earth beneath our feet, and it has turned out to be far more complex than one might initially think.
First, we know from the news that there is a huge ocean under the earth’s crust that contains more water than all the oceans on the surface.
Now, another study has been published that takes an in-depth look at the geology beneath the Southern Hemisphere.
New research published in Science progressfound evidence that the entire ocean floor actually extends around the core.
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This is a relatively thin layer that lies at the core-mantle boundary about 1,800 miles below Earth’s surface. They are ancient formations that can provide more insight into the structure of the planet beneath our feet.
Geologist Samantha Hansen of the University of Alabama and her colleagues led the research. They observed the structure using 15 observation stations under the Antarctic ice, charting waves from earthquakes.
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Doing so allowed them to analyze the structure of the Earth’s subsurface, including areas of very low velocity where waves travel much more slowly.
“Seismic investigations, such as ours, provide the highest-resolution imaging of our planet’s internal structure, and we found that these structures are much more complex than previously thought,” said Hansen.
Analysis [thousands] From seismic recordings from Antarctica, our high-resolution imaging methods found anomalously thin material in the CMB everywhere we looked,” said geophysicist Edward Garnero of Arizona State University.
The thickness of the material varies from several kilometers to [tens] from kilometers. This suggests that we see mountains at their core, in some places five times as high as Mount Everest. “
“Our research provides an important link between the shallow and deep structures of the Earth and the overall processes that power our planet,” added Hansen.
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