Daily news: 10 geological discoveries that rocked 2020!

Scientists have uncovered some of Earth’s most fascinating secrets this year. They discovered hidden rivers, pieces of lost continents and the remains of ancient rainforests, and delved into ancient history using the latest technology.

And the “Life Science” site published 10 of the geological discoveries that rocked our world in 2020:

Historic explosion in Yellowstone

Scientists discovered that the Yellowstone hotspot was hiding under the hot springs and hot springs of the national park, and almost 9 million years ago, the volcano erupted in two historic explosions.

After analyzing ancient volcanic expanses and volcanic sediments in the area, the team uncovered evidence of the eruption of a previously unknown volcano, which they called “McMullen Creek” supervolcano and Grey’s Landing supervolcano. .

The Grey’s Landing eruption shattered records when the largest hot eruption of Yellowstone volcano on record was discovered; About 8.72 million years ago, the eruption covered about 23,000 square kilometers of what is now southern Idaho and northern Nevada, with volcanic debris.

Wild spots near the core of the Earth are bigger than we thought

Continent-sized massifs lie at the boundaries of the solid mantle and the liquid outer core, and now scientists believe they may be larger than we imagined. According to previous estimates, the two largest points would be 100 times higher than Mount Everest if they were brought to the surface of the planet.

But after studying decades of seismic data, scientists now believe the Big Point under the Pacific Ocean may actually be much wilder. For example, a new structure has been discovered along a point more than 1000 kilometers in diameter.

About 8,000 years ago, a tsunami easily hit Britain and the Netherlands, inundating most of the region. But research indicates that some islands may have withstood the tsunami, providing habitat for Stone Age humans for thousands of years. Although it remained above the water for some time after the tsunami, the rise in sea level eventually led to the inundation of the islands after almost 1,000 years.

Scientists realized that the Lost Islands only survived the tsunami after collecting sediment from the seabed near the eastern English mouth of the River Ouse.

Earth’s core is about a billion years old

Scientists have estimated that the Earth’s solid inner core – a 1,500 mile (2,442 km) wide iron sphere – likely formed between 1 billion and 1.3 billion years ago. By recreating the conditions in the nucleus on a very small scale, the team were able to calculate how long it would take for a mass of molten iron to match the current size of the nucleus. The time window spanning nearly a billion years matches well with historical fluctuations in the planet’s magnetic field, which increased dramatically between 1 billion and 1.5 billion years ago.

Crystallization of the inner core may have provided this enhanced magnetism, as the process would release heat into the liquid outer core; The heat causes rippling motion in the liquid, which in turn provides energy to the magnetic field.

Discovery of a piece of a continent lost under Canada

About 150 million years ago, a now-lost continent split into huge fragments – and only one large chunk under Canada was recently discovered. Scientists made the discovery while studying a type of diamond-bearing volcanic rock called kimberlite, which was collected about 400 km below Baffin Island in northern Canada.

The mineralochemistry of the kimberlite matches that of the long lost continent, making the sampling site the deepest point where evidence of the continent has been found.

Scientists this year discovered huge rivers of cold and salty water flowing from the Australian coast into the depths of the ocean. Rivers, which the researchers say use autonomous underwater vehicles, form when shallow waters lose heat near the coast during the winter. Evaporation during the summer months makes these shallow waters more saline than the deep ones, so when it cools, the dense, salty water flows and moves through the ocean like an underwater river.

These rivers stretch for thousands of kilometers and carry nutrients, plant and animal matter, and pollutants into the ocean.

An ancient rainforest under the Antarctic ice

Antarctica may be the last place you’d expect to find remains of an ancient rainforest, but that’s exactly what scientists have found under the western side of the continent. Forest remains have been found in sediments carved out of the seabed near the Pine Island Glacier.

A layer of sediment protruded inside the core, as their color clearly differed from those around them. Upon closer inspection, scientists found spores, cut flowering plants and a network of roots in the layer. The sample dates back 90 million years, to the mid-Cretaceous, when the climate of now frozen Antarctica was much milder.

Ancient seabed buried 400 miles deep beneath China

A seabed that once aligned along the bottom of the Pacific Ocean has been found buried hundreds of miles below China, as it continues to plunge into the Earth’s mantle transition zone.

A plate of rock that lay above the oceanic lithosphere, the outermost layer of the Earth’s surface, was pushed down when it collided with a nearby tectonic plate, in a so- saying subduction event. Scientists have never discovered an event so deep below the planet’s surface, at depths ranging from 254 to 410 miles (410 to 660 km).

Revive a missing tectonic plate

Scientists digitally reconstructed a tectonic plate and showed that its motion likely led to an arc of volcanoes in the Pacific Ocean around 60 million years ago. And in the past, some geophysicists have argued that the plate, known as the Resurrection, never existed. But if it had existed, the plate would have grown under the earth’s crust tens of millions of years ago.

So, using computer reconstructions, the scientists reversed this movement, roughly pulling it along with other ancient panels to the surface. They found that the resurrection would fit a perfect puzzle piece, east of two panels called Cola and Farallon, and its edge matches the ancient volcanic belts of Washington state and Alaska.

The imposing coral structure

The first separate coral reefs were discovered over 100 years ago and it is taller than the Empire State Building. The Reef Tower stands 500 meters high from base to tip and stands freely near the rest of the Great Barrier Reef off the coast of Australia. The blade-like structure is 1.5 km long at its base and its top is about 40 meters below sea level.

• The situation in Egypt
• 133,900 injured
• 110,436 recovered
• 7466 deaths

• The situation in the world
• 81,638,229 injured
• 57,731,589 recovered
• 1,780,773 deaths

Source: Al-Masry Al-Youm