The Earth's mantle is a huge layer of slow-moving rock found beneath our surface. This circulation of rocks has literally shaped the world we live in today, from our islands and continents to our mountain ranges.
To know how our world has evolved, well, we need to have more than just a still photo: Instead of a static 3D image, a moving image is necessary that allows us to know how it has evolved and, eventually, how it will evolve.
4D
A team of nine universities, led by Cardiff University, sand has proposed creating the first 4-D maps of the Earth's mantle combining cutting-edge technology with the latest high-performance computing. The fourth dimension is time.
The project work packages combine dynamic topography, geochemistry, petrology and geomagnetism.
This way we will be able to know the temperature, density and speed of the mantle over a period of millions of years. As the main researcher of the project explains, Huw Davies, from Cardiff University:
By combining all this information, we will have a much clearer understanding of how our planet works. The 4-D visualizations that the project will produce will be of great interest to a wide variety of research areas and industries, from the exploration of mineral resources to understanding how large-scale events in the past shaped our climate and, therefore, Therefore, they underpin more robust predictions of future climate change.
As part of the study, the team will have access for the first time to a registry of plate movement of the last billion years of Earth's history.
This data will be combined with seismic images of earthquakes that have happened in the past and are currently occurring, which will provide information about the speed at which seismic waves move through the mantle.
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The news
Towards the creation of the first 4D maps of the Earth's mantle
was originally published in
Xataka Science
by
Sergio Parra
.