Deep diamonds contain evidence of deep-Earth recycling processes

Diamonds that formed deep in the Earth's mantle contain evidence of chemical reactions that occurred on the seafloor. Probing these gems can help geoscientists understand how material is exchanged between the planet's surface ...

New evidence for oceans of water deep in the Earth

Researchers from Northwestern University and the University of New Mexico report evidence for potentially oceans worth of water deep beneath the United States. Though not in the familiar liquid form—the ingredients for ...

Mapping the chemistry of the Earth's mantle

The Earth's mantle makes up about 85% of the Earth's volume and is made of solid rock. But exactly what rock types is the mantle made of, and how are they distributed throughout the mantle? An international team of researchers—including ...

Aluminous silica: A major water carrier in the lower mantle

Water is transported by oceanic plates into the Earth's deep interior and changes the properties of minerals and rocks, affecting the Earth's internal material cycle and environmental evolution since the formation of the ...

Former piece of Pacific Ocean floor imaged deep beneath China

In a study that gives new meaning to the term "rock bottom," seismic researchers have discovered the underside of a rocky slab of Earth's surface layer, or lithosphere, that has been pulled more than 400 miles beneath northeastern ...

Understanding the Earth under Hawaii

In the 1960s, some 50 years after German researcher Alfred Wegener proposed his continental drift hypothesis, the theory of plate tectonics gave scientists a unifying framework for describing the large-scale motion of the ...

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