Subduction of continental crust around the Gondwana supercontinent may explain the mantle Dupal anomaly of the southern hemisphere.
unsolved mysteries
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New Crowdsourced Science Project Will Study Sprites
The NASA-funded project is asking sky gazers, storm chasers, and scientists to capture photos of sprites and other optical phenomena that flash above thunderclouds after a lightning strike.
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Testing the Resilience of the Amazon
A mega-experiment in Brazil will evaluate how tropical rain forests absorb carbon as emissions increase.
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A Day in the Life Used to Be 17 Hours
The Moon was a lot closer to Earth 2.46 billion years ago, and the shorter distance contributed to shorter days.
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Could Jupiter’s Heat Waves Help Solve a Planetary Energy Crisis?
Infrared observations reveal that Jupiter’s upper atmosphere is much warmer than models predict. The discovery may be a clue to finding missing heat sources in other giant planets.
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Machine Learning Looks Anew at Isotope Ratios in Oceanic Basalts
While past attempts to define isotopic endmembers and assign them a geodynamic significance ended in controversy, a machine-learning clustering algorithm offers a solution to this classical problem.
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A Mysterious Dome Reveals Clues to Australia’s Miocene History
The Nullarbor Plain has been relatively untouched by geological forces, leaving traces of the continent’s deep past.
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Billion-Year Rewind Tracks Supercontinents and Mantle Structures
Scientists have traced past pathways of tectonic plates back a billion years using computer models, with intriguing results. Incorporating geologic data as a check on model output, however, has proven tricky.
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Space Raindrops Splashing on Earth’s Magnetic Umbrella
Though not as damaging as extreme space weather events, showers of plasma jets hit Earth’s magnetic shield every day—yet we’re only beginning to understand their effects.
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Massive Stars May Commit Grand Theft Planet
New simulations show that planets around young, massive stars may have been captured or stolen rather than homegrown.