Earth’s mantle reveals hidden treasures

A discovery that shakes the foundations of current theories about the Earth's mantle, which describe it as a dynamic and well-mixed system... Find out more!

Earth’s mantle reveals hidden treasures

Schematic representation of the process of subduction of tectonic plates and of a mantle plume rising from an LLSVP. In the latter, the mineral grains are larger than those in the subducted plates. Deeply hidden in Earth’s mantle there are two huge ‘islands’ with the size of a continent. New research from Utrecht University shows that these regions are not only hotter than the surrounding graveyard of cold sunken tectonic plates, but also that t…