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Boffins boggle, baffled by blobs deep inside the Earth

Ancient structures could help unlock secrets of volcanoes, earthquakes

Scientists have revealed new data about two giant blobs at the edge of the Earth's core, larger than continents and possibly older than any rock on the planet.

Unlocking the mystery of the blobs, known as thermochemical piles, could help reveal clue about the Earth's formation, volcanic eruptions, and earthquakes.

A team of boffins from Arizona State University including Edward Garnero, Allen McNamara, and Sang-Heon Shim detected the masses some 2900 kilometres deep underground.

"If a neuroscientist found an unknown structure in the human brain, the whole community of brain scientists, from psychologists to surgeons, would actively pursue understanding its role in the function of the whole system," Garnero says.

"As the thermochemical piles come into sharper focus, we hope other Earth scientists will explore how these features fit into the big puzzle of planet Earth."

The blobs lurk above the outer core and at opposite ends of the planet, beneath Africa and under the Pacific Ocean.

The trio reveals in the June issue of Nature Geoscience that the blobs are, contrary to previous thought, composed of different material than the surrounding mantle, and of stuff possibly 4.5 billion years old.

They find that seismic waves travel slowly through the blobs which were previously assumed to be upward-moving warm mantle.

The blobs are also thought to be denser than the surrounding mantle, and seem to be stable permanent fixtures of the planet that are molded by mantle flows. ®

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