Meet 'The Blobs': Two Continent-Size Mountains in Earth's Deep Mantle That Nobody Understands
By Brandon Specktor, Senior Writer | March 7, 2019 12:23pm ET
- click for image -
https://img.purch.com/h/1400/aHR0cDovL3d3dy5saXZlc2NpZW5jZS5jb20vaW1hZ2VzL2kvMDAwLzEwNC82NTQvb3JpZ2luYWwvTExTVlAuZ2lm
Near the bottom of Earth's mantle lie two continent-sized blobs of hot, compressed rock. They are called large low-shear-velocity provinces (LLSVPs) because seismic waves slow down as they pass through them, but geologists usually just call them "the blobs."
Credit: Cottaar and Lekic
About halfway between your feet and the center of Earth, two continent-size mountains of hot, compressed rock pierce the gut of the planet — and scientists know almost nothing about them.
Technically, these mysterious hunks of rock are called "large low-shear-velocity provinces" (LLSVPs), because seismic waves shuddering through Earth always slow down when passing through these structures.
A mesmerizing image, featured in an article on Eos (the official news site of the American Geophysical Union, or AGU), gives us one of the most detailed views yet of these rocky anomalies — which most scientists simply call "the blobs." [Earth's 8 Biggest Mysteries]
Geophysicists have known about the blobs since the 1970s but aren't much closer to understanding them today.
More:
https://www.livescience.com/64943-nobody-understands-the-giant-mantle-blobs.html
= new reply since forum marked as read
