Mountains larger than Everest deep in the Earth revealed by scientists

Technology

07:13 19.02.2019(update 07:40 19.02.2019) Get a short URL

The second largest earthquake ever recorded gave scientists a glimpse of the terrain beneath the surface of the planet, revealing higher peaks than the Himalayas.

Scientists have been able to find giant structures in seismic wave data captured during the earthquake in Bolivia in 1994, a study published in Science magazine reported on Thursday.

The Earth's mantle is a dense band of silicate rocks extending from the earth's crust to the heart, representing 84% of our planet's volume. At 410 miles from the surface, a boundary known as the 660-kilometer discontinuity divides the mantle into its upper and lower levels.

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The topography of this boundary is extremely difficult to read because of its density. One of the only ways to do this is to use seismic waves. The waves meet different textures, minerals and structures and bounce them in the same way that light waves reflect objects, thus providing scientists with a seismic snapshot. The intensive calculation of earthquake measurements allows scientists to reconstruct structures at the border.

"We need big earthquakes to allow the seismic waves to cross the mantle and the core, to bounce off the 660-kilometer gap and to go back across the Earth to be detected at the top of the crust," said Jessica Irving. Geophysicist at Princeton University and author of the study, told Motherboard in an email.

The Irving team used data from the 1994 earthquake in Bolivia, the second-largest recorded deep-earthquake – an 8.2 on the Richter scale – which found at the border a "stronger topography than the Rocky Mountains or the Appalachian Mountains.

"I can not give you an estimated number," said Irving, regarding the altitude of the beach. "But the mountains at the limit of 660 kilometers could be bigger than Mount Everest."

The sturdiness of the beach may be due to an accumulation of old pieces of seabed that are sucked into the mantle and drift to the border. The research is however incomplete, with scientists assuming that there may be ancient relics of Earth's history inside the mantle. Future research could shed light on the evolution of our planet and the way it has formed.