Two strange colored spots that resemble two continents from another planet hidden deep within the Earth are mysteriously changing shape.
These are two unusual structures – one beneath Africa and one beneath the Pacific Ocean, each covering an area comparable to a continent but with a complex shape, emerging from a region 2,900 km below the Earth’s surface. They are believed to be the source of hot rock columns that rise high, known as “deep mantle plumes.”
Scientists have known that these two structures have existed for a long time, but how they have changed throughout Earth’s history remains an open question.
Two strange colored spots inside the Earth – (Photo: Ömer Bodu).
A recent article published in The Conversation by a team of scientists from the University of Wollongong (Australia), the University of Leeds (UK), and Northwest University (Xi’an, China), led by Dr. Nicolas Flament from the University of Wollongong, has shown that these colored spots are continuously deforming.
They also have the potential to separate and then merge into a single mass, similar to how continents on the surface of the Earth have repeatedly formed supercontinents and then separated into multiple continents in a still mysterious process known as “plate tectonics.”
Utilizing the National Computational Infrastructure of Australia, the research team ran computer simulations on how the Earth’s mantle – where the colored spots reside – has changed over 1 billion years.
This process of plate tectonics is also the driving force behind this transformation.
The accumulation of cold rock – dense oceanic material – being pushed down during subduction is shifting the hot colored layers to the sides, potentially causing them to gather into a supermass on the opposite side of the planet.
The colored spots within the Earth are continuously changing
Additionally, the spot beneath Africa also contains continental material, and it seems that this material was only assembled about 60 million years ago.
According to Science Alert, despite everything, the origin of the colored spots remains a mystery. There are two prevailing hypotheses: They were assembled from many fragments of surface and mantle material during the process of plate tectonics; or they are remnants of Theia – a hypothetical planet the size of Mars that collided with and merged with Earth 4.5 billion years ago.
