Mountains 3 to 4 times larger than Everest found near Earth’s core

Oct 05, 2023

Dubbed ultra-low velocity zones (ULVZ), these gargantuan underground mountain ranges managed to escape the scientists’ gaze all these years until earthquakes and atomic explosions generated enough seismic data

Mountains with peaks three to four times higher than Mount Everest have been discovered deep inside the Earth, scientists said.

Using seismology centres in Antarctica, experts found these astonishingly huge "mountains" in the boundary between the core and mantle, around 1,800 miles deep (around 2,900 kilometres).

Dubbed ultra-low velocity zones (ULVZ), these gargantuan underground mountain ranges had managed to escape the scientists’ gaze all these years until earthquakes and atomic explosions generated enough seismic data to be spotted by them, reported BBC.

To make sense of how big these mountains are, Mount Everest is around 5.5 miles high (8.8 kilometres) from the surface, while the underground mountains are said to be over 24 miles (38 kilometres) in height.

"Analysing 1000's of seismic recordings from Antarctica, our high-definition imaging method found thin anomalous zones of material at the CMB [core-mantle boundary] everywhere we probed," Arizona State University geophysicist Edward Garnero said in a statement.

"The material's thickness varies from a few kilometres to 10's of kilometres. This suggests we are seeing mountains on the core, in some places up to 5 times taller than Mt. Everest."

One possible explanation given by the scientists is that these ancient formations were created when oceanic crusts were forced into Earth's interior.

They argue that it might have begun with tectonic plates slipping down into the Earth's mantle and sinking to the core-mantle boundary.

These then slowly spread out to form an assortment of structures, leaving a trail of both mountains and blobs. This would mean both are made from ancient oceanic crust: a combination of basalt rock and sediments from the ocean floor, albeit transformed by intense heat and pressure.

The study seeks to argue that these underground peaks may play a critical role in how heat escapes the Earth's core.

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The core is responsible for generating Earth's magnetic field and some of the material from it can even be ejected up to the Earth's surface during volcanic eruptions.

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"Seismic investigations, such as ours, provide the highest resolution imaging of the interior structure of our planet, and we are finding that this structure is vastly more complicated than once thought," study co-author and University of Alabama geoscientist Samantha Hansen said in a statement.

"Our research provides important connections between shallow and deep Earth structure and the overall processes driving our planet."

(With inputs from agencies)

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