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In 1994, a magnitude 8.2 earthquake struck Bolivia, causing a shock wave throughout the interior of the planet. These shock waves have since allowed scientists to take an unprecedented look at what is happening beneath the surface and discover a massif that could be larger than Everest. The waves reflect and change shape as they pass through different objects. That's how scientists were able to determine their presence.
The mountains grow in layers of rocks above, much less dense and less solid than the hilly areas below.
The lead author, Wenbo Wu, a geoscientist at the California Institute of Technology, said: "We know that almost all objects have a surface roughness and therefore a diffused light, so we can see these objects – the waves diffusers carry information about the roughness of the surface.
"In this study, we studied scattered seismic waves propagating inside the Earth to limit the roughness of the 660 km land boundary."
Seismologist Christine Houser, an assistant professor at the Tokyo Institute of Technology who did not participate in the research, added, "They find that the deep layers of the Earth are as complicated as what we see on the surface.
"Find a change of elevation from two to three (1-3 km) on a border of more than 400 km (660 km) deep using waves that roam the entire Earth and the return is an inspiring feat.
"Their findings suggest that as earthquakes occur and seismic instruments become more sophisticated and develop in new areas, we will continue to detect new small-scale signals that reveal the new properties of the layers of the earthquake. Earth."
The results allow researchers to better understand Earth's tectonic plates and coats, as well as to paint a clearer picture of what the future holds.
Princeton geophysicist Jessica Irving, co-author of the study published in the journal Science, said: "It is easy to assume, since we can detect only seismic waves crossing the Earth in its current state, that seismologists can not help understand the inside has changed over the past 4.5 billion years.
"What's interesting about these results is that they provide us with new information to understand the fate of the old tectonic plates that have descended into the mantle and where the old mantle material might still reside."
"Seismology is very exciting when it allows us to better understand the inside of our planet in time and in space."
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