Latest news with #continentaldrift
Yahoo
6 days ago
- Science
- Yahoo
One Side of Earth Is Rapidly Getting Colder Than the Other
Here's what you'll learn when you read this story: Research shows the Pacific hemisphere is losing heat faster than the African hemisphere. The heat is from Earth's molten interior, which causes continental drift. Landmass traps more heat than seafloor surface, indicating a hotter Pacific of the past. Scientists from the University of Oslo say one side of Earth's interior is losing heat much faster than the other side—and the culprit is practically as old as time. A study published in Geophysical Research Letters uses computer models of the last 400 million years to calculate how 'insulated' each hemisphere was by continental mass, which is a key quality that holds heat inside instead of releasing it. The pattern goes all the way back to Pangaea. Earth has a red hot liquid interior that warms the entire planet from inside. It spins, too, generating both gravity and Earth's magnetic field. This holds our protective atmosphere close to Earth's surface. Over the extremely long term, this interior will continue to cool until Earth is more like Mars. The surprise in the study is how unevenly the heat is dissipating, but the reason makes intuitive sense: Parts of Earth have been insulated by more landmass, creating something of a Thermos layer that traps heat. This contrasts with how Earth loses most of its heat: 'Earth's thermal evolution is largely controlled by the rate of heat loss through the oceanic lithosphere,' the study authors write. Why is this the site of the greatest loss? For that, we need a quick-and-dirty run-through of continental drift. Earth's mantle is like a convection oven that powers a treadmill. Every day, seafloor surface moves a tiny bit; new seafloor is born from the magma that erupts at the continental divide, while old seafloor is smashed and melted beneath existing continental landmass. To study how Earth's interior heat behaves, the scientists built a model that divides Earth into African and Pacific hemispheres, then divides Earth's entire surface into a grid by half degrees latitude and longitude. The scientists combined several previous models for things like seafloor age and continental positions during the last 400 million years. Then, the team crunched the numbers for how much heat each grid cell contains over its long life. This paved the way to calculate the rate of cooling overall, where the researchers found the Pacific side has cooled much faster. The seafloor is far thinner than the bulky landmass, and temperature from within Earth is 'quenched' by the enormous volume of cold water that's above it. Think of the gigantic Pacific Ocean compared with the opposite-side landmasses of Africa, Europe, and Asia—it makes sense that heat dissipates more quickly from the biggest seafloor in the world. Previous research on this seafloor effect only went back 230 million years, meaning the new model, which goes back 400 million years, almost doubles the timeframe being studied. There's a surprising contradiction in the findings. The Pacific hemisphere has cooled about 50 Kelvin more than the African hemisphere, but the 'consistently higher plate velocities of the Pacific hemisphere during the past 400 [million years]' suggest the Pacific was much hotter at a certain moment in time. Was it covered by landmass at some point in the far distant past, keeping more heat inside? There are other possible explanations, but either way, the Pacific's high tectonic activity today points to a heat disparity. The meltier the mantle, the more the plates can slide and slam together. Get the Issue Get the Issue Get the Issue Get the Issue Get the Issue Get the Issue Get the IssueGet the Issue Get the Issue You Might Also Like The Do's and Don'ts of Using Painter's Tape The Best Portable BBQ Grills for Cooking Anywhere Can a Smart Watch Prolong Your Life? Solve the daily Crossword
The Sun
28-05-2025
- Science
- The Sun
Africa is being split apart by intense ‘superplume' of hot rock 1,800 miles below Earth's surface, experts warn
AFRICA is splitting apart - meaning the continent will form two separate land masses with an ocean in between in several million years, experts say. But the driving force behind the continental drift has long been debated. 7 7 7 Scientists previously thought Africa's tectonic plates, which collided to form large mountains and pulled apart to create vast basins, were simply moving apart again. But a new study from the University of Glasgow suggests that intense volcanic activity deep underground may be fuelling the divide. A gigantic superplume of hot rock, roughly 1,800 miles (2,900km) beneath the Earth's surface, is pushing up against the African crust and fracturing it. Professor Fin Stuart, of the University of Glasgow and the Scottish Universities Environmental Research Centre (SUERC), led the project. He said: "We have long been interested in how the deep Earth rises to surface, how much is transported, and just what role it plays on forming the large-scale topography of the Earth's surface. "Our research suggests that a giant hot blob of rock from the core-mantle boundary is present beneath East Africa, it is driving the plates apart and propping up the Africa continent so it hundreds of metres higher than normal." Experts suspected as much back in 2023, but geologists have now detected volcanic gases that back up the theory. The Meengai geothermal field in central Kenya has a chemical signature that comes from deep inside Earth's mantle, matching those found in volcanic rocks to the north, in the Red Sea, and to the south, in Malawi. The discovery indicates that all these locations are sat atop the same deep mantle rock, according to experts. Inside active volcano where world's largest ACID lake is buried - so dangerous it melts human skin & spews blue lava Study co-author, Biying Chen, of the University of Edinburgh and SUERC, said: "These gases from our geothermal wells have provide valuable new insight into the Earth's deep interior." Chen added that the findings will help researchers to understand both the geological forces shaping East Africa and "the fundamental processes which drive the formation of our planet's surface over millions of years". 7 The East African Rift System (EARS) is the largest active continental rift system on Earth. It is in the process of ripping through around 2,175miles (3,500km) of Africa. Continental rifting is nothing new for Earth - and is the reason why we have seven continents today. Roughly 240 million years ago, long before humans roamed, Earth was home to just one supercontinent known as Pangaea. The Scottish Highlands, the Appalachians, and the Atlas Mountains were actually all part of the same mountain range on Pangaea, but were torn apart by continental drift. In January, Ken Macdonald, a professor at the University of California, warned the continent was splitting at a faster rate than expected. Somalia and parts of Ethiopia, Kenya, and Tanzania will form a distinct continent, accompanied by a fresh coastline. The split would create a new ocean, and a small new continent that he said could be called the "Nubian continent". "What might happen is that the waters of the Indian Ocean would come in and flood what is now the East African Rift Valley," Ken Macdonald, a professor at the University of California, Santa Barbara, told the Mail Online. The new ocean could become as deep as the Atlantic if waters continue to flow into the area, added Macdonald. 7 7 7
