On the border between the molten core of the Earth and its solid mantle, specifically beneath the volcanic islands of Marquesas, some of the French Polynesia islands located in the South Pacific, scientists have made an exciting geological discovery.
Scientists have discovered a massive structure known as the ULVZ, consisting of unusually hot and dense rocks, deep in the Earth's sub-Pacific ocean, according to a study published in the journal Science.
The findings have been reached by an international team with researchers from the University of Maryland, Johns Hopkins University, and the University of Tel Aviv, in the report published by the American magazine Newsweek on the study, writer Aristos Giorgio.
He explained that the team also found evidence indicating that the low-speed seismic waves region, previously observed under the Hawaiian Islands, is much larger than they thought.
Inflamed material
This region of seismic waves is characterized by the presence of inflammatory rock materials rising from the border between the pulp and mantle to the outer crust of the Earth, which leads to the formation of volcanic islands similar to Hawaii and Marquesas.
The author stated that scientists were able to discover these structures by analyzing seismic wave data, which travels for thousands of miles below the surface of the earth.
And since the material that these waves pass through differs in density, temperature, or structure, the speed, curvature, and spread of waves change and produce echoes that scientists can discover using seismometers.
Using this data, researchers can collect an image of rocks beneath the surface and estimate their physical properties.
A new perspective
In the recent study, the authors used a machine learning algorithm called a "sequence analyzer" to analyze about 7,000 recordings of seismic waves, known as seismic patterns.
These schemes were created by relying on hundreds of earthquakes of magnitude 6.5 on the Richter scale or more, which struck the Pacific region between 1990 and 2018.
These waves propagate along the boundary between the core and the mantle, providing a comprehensive view of the Earth's interior beneath the Pacific.
"By simultaneously looking at the thousands of echoes of these seismic waves, we have got a whole new perspective," said Dion Kim, lead author of the study from the University of Maryland's Department of Geology.
"This reveals to us that the border region between the mantle and the core has many structures that can generate these echoes, and this is something that we had not realized before because we only had a narrow angle of view," Kim added.
Witness: A representation of a very low-speed seismic wave zone.
High signals
To their amazement, the researchers found that nearly half of the deviated waves were scattered by three-dimensional structures near the border between the mantle and the core, which sheds new light on this area of land under the Pacific Ocean.
"We have found echoes of 40% of all seismic wave pathways. It was surprising because we expected them to be more rare, meaning that the anomalous structures are within the boundaries between the mantle," the author quoted Vidran Likic, a study author from the University of Maryland, in a statement. And pulp is much more common than previously thought. "
The researchers also discovered particularly high signals from the bottom of the Hawaiian and Marquesas Islands, which means large areas characterized by very low speed seismic waves.
Despite these recent findings, scientists still know relatively little about the composition of regions with very low-speed seismic waves.
However, studies similar to the latest research paper can have implications for our understanding of geological processes, such as tectonic plate movements, as well as the evolution of our planet.