The Bermuda Triangle is known for its mystery and now researchers have just discovered something else strange in the world. They’ve spotted an unlimited stone structure hidden beneath Bermuda that’s ‘unlike the rest on Earth’. The 12.4 mile (20km) layer of rock sits underneath the ocean crust below Bermuda and no structure this thick has ever been found before, in accordance with the team. (Picture: Getty)
The island sits on a raised area of ocean crust generally known as an ‘oceanic swell’, which lifts up above the encompassing area. Often, these formations are typically related to volcanic activity, but there is no such thing as a recent evidence to indicate that a volcano is guilty for Bermuda’s strange geology. The island has not had an eruption in greater than 31 million years and any consequences would have now subsided.
Recent research, published within the journal Geophysical Research Letters, suggests the last eruption injected molten rock into the crust where it froze right into a raft, lifting the island 500 metres (1,640 ft) out of the ocean. To figure this out, they checked out recordings from a seismic station on Bermuda after which traced the passage of powerful but distant earthquakes as they made their way through the rock 31 miles (50km) beneath the island. (Picture: Getty)
By where these seismic waves unexpectedly modified course, the researchers found the strangely thick layer of rock. Dr William Frazer, a seismologist at Carnegie Science, told Live Science: ‘Typically, you’ve gotten the underside of the oceanic crust after which it will be expected to be the mantle. But in Bermuda, there may be this other layer that’s emplaced beneath the crust, throughout the tectonic plate that Bermuda sits on.’ This find could possibly be a significant step towards cracking why Bermuda’s oceanic swell exists. Island chains like Hawaii typically form due to volcanic activity above mantle hotspots and this hot material pushes its way through the crust to create islands.
Nevertheless, when the tectonic plate moves away from the hotspot, these swells steadily reduce over time. But since Bermuda has not had an eruption in such an extended time, scientists couldn’t explain why its swell was still so high. As this newly–discovered layer is less dense than the encompassing rock, it each deflects passing seismic waves and pushes the island upwards. (Picture: Getty)
Dr Sarah Mazza, a geologist at Smith College in Massachusetts, who was not involved within the work, told Live Science: ‘There continues to be this material that’s left over from the times of lively volcanism under Bermuda that helps to potentially hold it up as this area of high relief within the Atlantic Ocean. The incontrovertible fact that we’re in an area that was previously the center of the last supercontinent is, I feel, a part of the story of why this is exclusive.’ (Picture: Getty)
Research has previously found that old lava on Bermuda is low within the mineral silicon, which suggests that it got here from a layer of the Earth that could be very low in carbon. It likely got here from deep within the Earth’s mantle when the supercontinent Pangea opened as much as form the Atlantic Ocean 900 to 300 million years ago. The researchers at the moment are examining other islands to see if there are some other similar layers. (Picture: Getty)
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