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 mantle
Posted inResearch Spotlights
Linking Mantle Plumes to Volcanoes and Hot Spot Tracks
Study bolsters hypothesis that volcanoes on China’s Hainan Island were formed by a hot spot.
Posted inNews
Diamond Impurities Reveal Water Deep Within the Mantle
A high-pressure form of ice, trapped within diamonds forged in the lower mantle, suggests that aqueous fluids reside deeper in Earth than we knew.
Posted inResearch Spotlights
Widespread Mantle Upwelling Beneath Oceanic Transform Faults
A global characterization of mantle flow patterns beneath active oceanic transforms suggests pervasive upwelling stabilizes divergent plate boundaries by warming and weakening these enigmatic features.
Posted inEditors' Highlights
New Thermodynamic Model for Computing Mantle Mineralogy
A newly developed open-access software package called MMA-EoS can calculate whole mantle mineralogy in multicomponent systems by Gibbs energy minimization.
Posted inResearch Spotlights
A Significantly Hotter Mantle Beneath Iceland
Estimates of crystallization temperatures from four eruptions in northern Iceland offer improved constraints on the mantle's temperature beneath this anomalous divergent plate boundary.
Posted inResearch Spotlights
A Better Model for How the Mantle Melts
A new model of the melting behavior of certain mantle rocks gives researchers a better understanding of the source of oceanic lavas.
Posted inResearch Spotlights
Variable Mantle Lies Below Ancient Pieces of Earth's Crust
Underneath old and stable pieces of Earth's crust in North America, the mantle's uppermost portion contains multiple layers that change the velocities of seismic waves.
Posted inScience Updates
UAE-Oman Mountains Give Clues to Oceanic Crust and Mantle Rocks
When oceanic plates meet continental plates, the continental plates usually come out on top. Cases where this is reversed provide valuable access to oceanic crust and mantle materials.
Posted inFeatures
What Lies Deep in the Mantle Below?
For decades, scientists have probed Earth's remote mantle by analyzing how seismic waves of distant earthquakes pass through it. But we are still challenged by the technique's limitations.