Scientists have been studying the Earth's centre for a very long time in order to understand planetary genesis and evolution, and recently they uncovered an unexpected and somewhat fascinating discovery concerning the earth's core.
According to the Science Alert, researchers have pieced together the highest resolution map of Earth's southern hemisphere's underlying geology ever, indicating an old ocean floor that may encircle the core.
The researchers of The University of Alabama identified a layer between the core and the mantle that is probably a dense, yet thin, submerged ocean floor.
"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," said Dr. Samantha Hansen, the George Lindahl III Endowed Professor in Geological Sciences at UA and lead author of the study.
"Our research provides important connections between shallow and deep Earth structure and the overall processes driving our planet."
"Analysing thousands of seismic recordings from Antarctica, our high-definition imaging method found thin anomalous zones of material at the CMB everywhere we probed," said study co-author Edward Garnero, a professor in the School of Earth and Space Exploration at Arizona State University, in a press release.
As per the news release, these subtle signals were used to map a variable layer of material across the study region that is pencil thin, measuring in the tens of kilometres, compared to the thickness of the Earth's dominant layers. The properties of the anomalous core-mantle boundary coating include strong wave speed reductions, leading to the name ultra-low velocity zone.
