“This iron-rich material is a remnant of ancient rocks from Earth’s early history or even that iron might be leaking from the core by an unknown means,” was one of the comments made by the project leader. This has led to scientists studying a massive underground structure hidden deep beneath Hawaii.
In order to adequately analyze a gigantic underground structure concealed deep beneath Hawaii, researchers employed “the latest numerical modelling methods.”
Owing to the efforts of a research led by the University of Cambridge, a comprehensive image of a specific ultra low velocity zone – a rock area with exceptionally low seismic velocity and situated at the boundary between Earth’s core and mantle – has been obtained for the first time.
The ultra low velocity zone in concern is around three thousand kilometers beneath the surface, just below Hawaii.
“Of all Earth’s deep interior features, these are the most fascinating and complex. We’ve now got the first solid evidence to show their internal structure—it’s a real milestone in deep earth seismology”, Zhi Li, a PhD student at Cambridge’s Department of Earth Sciences and lead author of the study, said as quoted by Phys.org.
Images of structures at the core-mantle boundary obtained by scientists utilizing seismic waves from earthquakes “have been grainy and difficult to interpret” according to the media outlet, so the study team used “the latest numerical modeling methods to reveal kilometer-scale structures” at the boundary.
“We are really pushing the limits of modern high-performance computing for elastodynamic simulations, taking advantage of wave symmetries unnoticed or unused before”, said Dr Kuangdai Leng, co-author of the study who developed the said methods while at the University of Oxford.
The team’s findings led them to believe that the territory contains significantly more iron than neighboring rocks, with project leader Dr Sanne Cottaar of Cambridge Earth Sciences speculating that “this iron-rich material is a remnant of ancient rocks from Earth’s early history or even that iron might be leaking from the core by an unknown means.”
According to the media site, the new study could potentially shed insight on “what sits beneath and gives rise to volcanic chains like the Hawaiian Islands.”