Professor Samantha Hansen’s team collected data over a three-year period using a network of 15 seismographs deployed in Antarctica, focusing on the ultra-low velocity region (ULVZ), which are extremely dense border regions that cause seismic waves to slow down significantly.

How did these strange peaks form inside the planet?

The results, published in the journal Nature Geoscience, suggest that these ULVZs resemble mountain ridges several to tens of kilometers high and may be remnants of ancient oceanic lithospheric plates that submerged almost to their core over millions of years.

At the Earth’s core we can literally see mountains that can be five times higher in some places than Mount Everest.
— said Edward Garnero, one of the study’s authors.

Earth’s core located at approximate depth 3,000 kilometers undergroundare separated:

• solid inner core,
• liquid outer core,
• and a miniature core inside a liquid core.

This core is surrounded by a thin boundary layer that is only tens of kilometers long, separating it from the mantle. Ultraviolet waves were observed in this boundary layer.

The researchers believe that these ULVZs do not correspond to modern subduction zones, where oceanic plates are known to subduct under continental plates. This suggests that these mountains in the Earth’s core are remnants of ancient oceanic plates that have accumulated over millions of years, forming dense and massive structures at the boundary between the core and the mantle.

Why is this an important discovery?

The discovery of these ancient lithospheric plates stacked in mountains above the Earth’s core has opened up new opportunities for understanding the geological history and dynamics of our planet. It challenges previous understanding of the composition and structure of Earth’s interior, shedding light on the complex processes that have shaped our planet over billions of years.

More research is needed to fully understand the implications of this discovery and how these ancient lithospheric plates accumulated and interacted with the core and mantle. But this discovery allows us to look into the deep secrets of our planet’s internal structure and deepens our understanding of Earth’s geology and evolution.