Amphiboles could carry the volume of the Arctic Ocean into Earth’s mantle in 200 million years
A bigger volume of the world’s oceans is seeping deeper into Earth’s mantle than expected: That is the result of a study investigating a water-bearing mineral abundant in the oceanic crust. High-pressure experiments at DESY’s X-ray source PETRA III show that the mineral glaucophane is surprisingly stable up to 240 kilometres underground, which means it also carries water down to this depth. Scientists attribute this to the gradual cooling of Earth’s interior over geological timescales. The cooler temperatures let glaucophane and possibly other water-bearing minerals survive to greater pressures, as the team headed by Yongjae Lee from Yonsei University in South Korea reports in the journal Nature Communications. The scientists estimate that in about 200 million years, an additional volume equal to the Arctic Ocean could seep deep into Earth’s mantle this way.
Read more on the DESY website
Image: In the high-pressure cell, glaucophane samples are heated and squeezed between two diamond anvils
Credit: Yonsei University, Yoonah Bang/Huijeong Hwang