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May 16 (UPI) – Scientists have discovered a new type of volcano formation.
By studying the deep layers of the planet beneath Bermuda, scientists discovered traces of volcanic material emerging from the mantle transition zone, located between 250 and 400 miles below the Earth's crust.
"We have found a new way to make volcanoes," Esteban Gazel, an associate professor of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences at Cornell University, said in a press release. "This is the first time we find a clear indication of the transition zone located at the heart of the Earth's mantle that volcanoes can form in this manner."
The new research – detailed this week in the journal Nature – is based on the analysis of a 600-foot core sample drilled in Bermuda in 1972. Over the last few decades, the gigantic cylinder of rocks and Sediment was stored at Dalhousie University in Nova Scotia.
To determine the origin of ancient volcanic materials from the island, geologists analyzed the isotopes of various trace elements, as well as the amount of water and other volatiles trapped in them. rocky layers.
Scientists were waiting to trace the ancient magma back to a much deeper source. Most mantle plumes, such as those that feed Hawaiian volcanoes, grow from the core-mantle boundary.
The geochemical signals found in the nucleus, however, pointed elsewhere.
Scientists have determined that the dormant volcano that created Bermuda was formed after a disruption of the mantle transition zone that caused the start of the breakthrough of rich and volatile materials to the surface there are about 30 million years.
The main gift was the huge amount of water trapped in the crystals of the old nucleus. The transition zone of the mantle contains enough water to form three oceans.
In addition to large amounts of water, scientists have also discovered strange combinations of extreme isotopes – isotopic signatures never seen before. But now that scientists know what a volcano derived from the mantle transition zone looks like, they expect to find similar geochemical signatures among the old rock layers.
"Through this work, we can demonstrate that the Earth's transition zone is a reservoir of extreme chemicals," Gazel said. "We are just beginning to recognize its importance in terms of global geodynamics and even volcanism."
Gazel and his colleagues are currently working to determine the role that this new type of volcanism has played in the evolution of the planet.
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