You may have heard that the Earth’s tectonic plates slide around, but, how do these hard rocks do that?
Scientists from the Scripps Institution of Oceanography discovered a layer of magma in the Earth’s mantle which may be acting as a lubricant to facilitate the slide of tectonic plates. They imaged a 15.5-mile thick layer of partially melted mantle rock below the edge of the Cocos plate where it moves under Central America.
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There are two main layers of the mantle. The upper mantle, and the lower mantle. The upper mantle is mostly solid, and the lower mantle is partially molten (extremely viscous/barely liquid).
This lubricant discovery was made at the Middle America trench using electromagnetic imaging technology pioneered at Scripps as part of the SERPENT project.
Source: UCSD.edu.