Scientists Detect Strange New Structures Deep Inside the Earth
They're buried thousands of miles below the surface. The post Scientists Detect Strange New Structures Deep Inside the Earth appeared first on Futurism .
Scientists have discovered strange new structures deep within the Earth's interior using seismic data collected from over two million earthquakes between 1990 and 2024. Utilizing a machine learning algorithm, researchers from the Chinese Academy of Sciences identified nearly 175,000 "PKP precursors" – seismic signals that precede main earthquakes.
These precursors are believed to be triggered by small heterogeneities just above the boundary where the Earth's solid mantle meets its liquid iron core, located roughly 1,800 miles beneath the surface. This technique, previously time-consuming, enabled scientists to pinpoint "roughly ten times more" PKP precursors than all prior studies combined.
With this new data, the researchers have created a comprehensive map of potential small-scale heterogeneities in the Earth's deep interior, revealing six previously undocumented areas with significant heterogeneities. These ancient structures could be linked to subduction zones, where material dragged deep below the surface is chemically altered by the core-mantle boundary's extreme pressure and temperature, potentially causing the material to take on vastly different physical properties.
The findings could help predict future seismic activity and deepen our understanding of Earth's formation and the development of tectonic plates.
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