A previously unknown layer of partially molten rock has been detected beneath Earth’s crust. The discovery could help scientists learn more about the motions of Earth’s tectonic plates.

Earth's main layers are the thin crust 4 to 50 miles deep (thinner under oceans, thicker under continents), a mantle extending 1,800 miles deep and the iron core. But there are subdivisions.

This layer, known as the D" layer, is about 1,900 miles underneath the Earth's surface, resting between the liquid outer core and the solid mantle, and varies massively in thickness across the globe.

(Image credit: photoplotnikov | Shutterstock) The Earth's mantle is the hot, rocky layer between the planet's core and crust. Scientists have long suspected that the mantle's so-called transition ...

Details into how most of the crust that covers the planet formed are now emerging from new 3-D X-ray images of melted rock. More than 60 percent of the Earth's surface formed at volcanoes on deep ...

A simulated image of the blob, located deep in Earth’s mantle beneath Africa. Yuan and Li’s mantle-convection simulations helped them figure out what contributed to that difference.

The world’s oceans and continents sit on 15 major blocks that move and shift, called tectonic plates, that make up the lower crust and upper mantle. The newly identified molten layer is located ...

By crushing minerals between diamonds, a new study suggests the existence of an unknown layer inside Earth: part of the lower mantle where the rock gets three times stiffer. The discovery may ...

Researchers have detected a previously unknown layer of partially molten rock beneath Earth's crust. The discovery could help scientists learn more about the movements of Earth's tectonic plates ...

Researchers have detected a previously unknown layer of partially molten rock beneath Earth's crust. Posted 2023-02-07T21:54:14+00:00 - Updated 2023-02-07T21:53:04+00:00 ...