Scientists have found an explanation for the “gravitational hole” in the Indian Ocean.
A gravity hole is an area where the gravitational attraction is low, causing the sea floor to sink.
Deep within the ocean lies one that covers three million square kilometers and has previously baffled scientists.
Now, two researchers from the Indian Institute of Science, Debanjan Pal and Attreyee Ghosh, think they have solved the mystery.
More than 1,000 kilometers (621 miles) beneath the Earth’s crust, they discovered the cold, solid remains of ancient oceans that plunged into ‘slab burial’ under Africa about 30 million years ago, churning out hot molten rock.
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Pal and Josh tracked the formation of the massive geode by modeling how plate tectonics moved up the Earth’s mantle over the past 140 million years.
They ran simulations and compared the shape of the low-lying ocean predicted by those models with observations of the dents themselves.
The models that have reproduced the lowland geodes of the Indian Ocean in their current form all have one thing in common: a burst of hot, low-density magma shoots beneath the bottom. These plumes, combined with the distinctive mantle structure, are what create the geoid depressions; If they rise high enough, Pal and Ghosh count.
In short, our results show that it is compatible with [shape and amplitude of the] The pair note that the geodes are low, and the plume must be buoyant enough to reach mid-mantle depth.
The first of these plumes appeared about 20 million years ago, in the lower geode south of the Indian Ocean, and about 10 million years after the ancient Tethys Sea sank into the lower mantle. As the plume spreads under the lithosphere and moves slowly towards the Indian Peninsula, the depression increases.
But more research needs to be done to find out what really happened because not all scientists are sure.
Science is madness.
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2023-07-06 08:10:36
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