The amount of CO2 segregated from the mantle by carbonate melting beneath old oceanic crust may equal that emitted along the mid-ocean ridge system, thereby contributing to the global carbon cycle.
Earth’s crust
Posted inEditors' Highlights
Are Diamonds Ubiquitous Beneath Old Stable Continents?
Although rare at the Earth’s surface, diamonds may be commonplace at depths of 120 to 150 kilometers below the surface within the lithosphere of old continents.
Posted inResearch Spotlights
Magma Flow in a Major Icelandic Eruption
Mechanical modeling suggests that previous, undetected eruptions released tectonic stress near the ice-covered Bárðarbunga volcano.
Posted inEditors' Vox
Modeling Megathrust Zones
A recent paper in Review of Geophysics built a unifying model to predict the surface characteristics of large earthquakes.
Posted inEditors' Highlights
The Many Magmatic Modifications to the African Continent
How the very slow moving African Continent, with a lithosphere of quite varied age elements and thickness, has responded to ongoing asthenospheric modification.
Posted inNews
Weight of Water Dropped by Hurricane Harvey Flexed Earth’s Crust
The precipitation that fell during the storm depressed the ground in parts of Texas, Louisiana, Arkansas, and Mississippi by as much as 1.8 centimeters in some places.
Posted inResearch Spotlights
Scientists Simulate New Mechanism of Fluid Flow in Earth’s Crust
Three-dimensional high-performance computer modeling reveals the behavior of fluid transport waves generated by chemical reactions that take place during metamorphism.
Posted inResearch Spotlights
Is the Lower Crust Convecting Beneath Mid-Ocean Ridges?
The first attempt to couple models of hydrothermal circulation and magmatic convection along fast-spreading ridges may explain the spacing of hydrothermal vent fields along the East Pacific Rise.
Posted inResearch Spotlights
Measuring Earth’s Elasticity
A new study illuminates how crustal rocks break and stretch.
Posted inResearch Spotlights
Massive Waves of Melting Greenland Ice Warped Earth’s Crust
A novel method uses shifting bedrock to trace pulses of mass that propagate down a glacier.