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A geological secret passage beneath Panama may explain why rocks from Earth's mantle are found more than 1,000 miles (1,609 kilometers) from where they originated.
This opening, located some 62 miles (100 km) below Earth's surface, may allow a flow of mantle materials to travel all the way from beneath the Galápagos Islands to beneath Panama.
This never-before-discovered form of transport may also help explain why Panama has very few active volcanoes. On the west coast of Central America, the Cocos tectonic plate is diving down and pushes oceanic crust under the continental crust of the North American, Caribbean and Panama tectonic plates, a process called subduction. This subduction zone creates a line of volcanoes called the Central American Volcanic Arc where lava pushes through the boundaries. But the volcanism stops in western Panama, which sits on the Panama plate , said David Bekaert, a postdoctoral scholar in marine chemistry and geochemistry at Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution in Massachusetts.
This relative peace has long been a mystery. Now, Bekaert and his colleagues report in a new study published Nov. 23 in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences that the culprit may be a window-like opening in the Cocos tectonic plate that's being pushed down toward Earth's center.
Read the rest:
www.livescience.com
This opening, located some 62 miles (100 km) below Earth's surface, may allow a flow of mantle materials to travel all the way from beneath the Galápagos Islands to beneath Panama.
This never-before-discovered form of transport may also help explain why Panama has very few active volcanoes. On the west coast of Central America, the Cocos tectonic plate is diving down and pushes oceanic crust under the continental crust of the North American, Caribbean and Panama tectonic plates, a process called subduction. This subduction zone creates a line of volcanoes called the Central American Volcanic Arc where lava pushes through the boundaries. But the volcanism stops in western Panama, which sits on the Panama plate , said David Bekaert, a postdoctoral scholar in marine chemistry and geochemistry at Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution in Massachusetts.
This relative peace has long been a mystery. Now, Bekaert and his colleagues report in a new study published Nov. 23 in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences that the culprit may be a window-like opening in the Cocos tectonic plate that's being pushed down toward Earth's center.
Read the rest:
'Wind' from Earth's middle layer blows through a secret passage beneath Panama
Researchers just discovered a geological hidden passageway.
www.livescience.com
