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Ultra-low Velocity Zone
Ultra low velocity zones (ULVZs) are patches on the core-mantle boundary that have extremely low seismic velocities. The zones are mapped to be hundreds of kilometers in diameter and tens of kilometers thick. Their shear wave velocities can be up to 30% lower than surrounding material. The composition and origin of the zones remain uncertain. The zones appear to correlate with edges of the African and Pacific large low-shear-velocity provinces (LLSVPs) as well as the location of hotspots. Discovery and constraints ULVZs are discovered by the delay and scattering of body waves that reflect and diffract on or are refracted by the core-mantle boundary. Different body waves types give different constraints on the dimensions or velocity contrasts of the ULVZ. Even though ULVZs are discovered in places, it remains difficult to map out their extent and constrain their density and velocity. Usually trade-offs between various parameters exist. In general though, ULVZs appear to be ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Magma Ocean
Magma oceans are vast fields of surface magma that exist during periods of a planet's or some natural satellite's accretion when the celestial body is completely or partly molten. In the early Solar System, magma oceans were formed by the melting of planetesimals and planetary impacts. Small planetesimals are melted by the heat provided by the radioactive decay of aluminium-26. As planets grew larger, the energy was then supplied from giant impacts with other planetary bodies. Magma oceans are integral parts of planetary formation as they facilitate the formation of a core through metal segregation and an atmosphere and hydrosphere through degassing. Evidence exists to support the existence of magma oceans on both the Earth and the Moon. Magma oceans may survive for millions to tens of millions of years, interspersed by relatively mild conditions. Magma ocean heat sources The sources of the energy required for the formation of magma oceans in the early solar system were the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Samoa Hotspot
The Samoa hotspot is a volcanic hotspot located in the south Pacific Ocean. The hotspot model describes a hot upwelling plume of magma through the Earth's crust as an explanation of how volcanic islands are formed. The hotspot idea came from J. Tuzo Wilson in 1963 based on the Hawaiian Islands volcanic chain. In theory, the Samoa hotspot is based on the Pacific Tectonic Plate travelling over a fixed hotspot located deep underneath the Samoan Islands. The Samoa hotspot includes the Samoan Islands (American Samoa and Samoa), and extends to the islands of Uvea or Wallis Island (Wallis and Futuna) and Niulakita (Tuvalu), as well as the submerged Pasco banks and Alexa Bank. As the Pacific Plate moves slowly over the hotspot, thermal activity builds up and is released in magma plume spewing through the Earth's crust, forming each island in a chain. The Samoa islands generally lie in a straight line, east to west, in the same direction of the tectonic plate 'drifting' over the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Pacific ULVZs
The Pacific Ocean is the largest and deepest of Earth's five Borders of the oceans, oceanic divisions. It extends from the Arctic Ocean in the north to the Southern Ocean, or, depending on the definition, to Antarctica in the south, and is bounded by the continents of Asia and Australia in the west and the Americas in the east. At in area (as defined with a southern Antarctic border), the Pacific Ocean is the largest division of the World Ocean and the hydrosphere and covers approximately 46% of Earth's water surface and about 32% of the planet's total surface area, larger than its entire land area ().Pacific Ocean . ''Encyclopædia Britannica, Britannica Concise.'' 2008: Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc. The centers of both the Land and water hemispheres, water hemisphere and the Western Hemisphere, as well as the Pole of inaccessi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Hawaii Hotspot
The Hawaii hotspot is a volcanic hotspot located near the namesake Hawaiian Islands, in the northern Pacific Ocean. One of the best known and intensively studied hotspots in the world, the Hawaii plume is responsible for the creation of the Hawaiian–Emperor seamount chain, a mostly undersea volcanic mountain range. Four of these volcanoes are active, two are dormant; more than 123 are extinct, most now preserved as atolls or seamounts. The chain extends from south of the island of Hawaii to the edge of the Aleutian Trench, near the eastern coast of Russia. While some volcanoes are created by geologic processes near tectonic plate convergence and subduction zones, the Hawaii hotspot is located far from plate boundaries. The classic hotspot theory, first proposed in 1963 by John Tuzo Wilson, proposes that a single, fixed mantle plume builds volcanoes that are then cut off from their source by the movement of the Pacific plate. This causes less lava to erupt from these ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Large Low-shear-velocity Provinces
Large low-shear-velocity provinces (LLSVPs), also called large low-velocity provinces (LLVPs) or superplumes, are characteristic structures of parts of the lowermost mantle, the region surrounding the outer core deep inside the Earth. These provinces are characterized by slow shear wave velocities and were discovered by seismic tomography of deep Earth. There are two main provinces: the African LLSVP and the Pacific LLSVP, both extending laterally for thousands of kilometers and possibly up to 1,000 kilometres vertically from the core–mantle boundary. These have been named Tuzo and Jason respectively, after Tuzo Wilson and W. Jason Morgan, two geologists acclaimed in the field of plate tectonics. The Pacific LLSVP is across and underlies four hotspots on Earth's crust that suggest multiple mantle plumes underneath. These zones represent around 8% of the volume of the mantle, or 6% of the entire Earth. Other names for LLSVPs and their superstructures include superswells, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
California Institute Of Technology
The California Institute of Technology (branded as Caltech) is a private research university in Pasadena, California, United States. The university is responsible for many modern scientific advancements and is among a small group of institutes of technology in the United States that are devoted to the instruction of pure and applied sciences. The institution was founded as a preparatory and vocational school by Amos G. Throop in 1891 and began attracting influential scientists such as George Ellery Hale, Arthur Amos Noyes, and Robert Andrews Millikan in the early 20th century. The vocational and preparatory schools were disbanded and spun off in 1910, and the college assumed its present name in 1920. In 1934, Caltech was elected to the Association of American Universities, and the antecedents of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, which Caltech continues to manage and operate, were established between 1936 and 1943 under Theodore von Kármán. Caltech has six academic divisi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Periclase
Periclase is a magnesium mineral that occurs naturally in contact metamorphic rocks and is a major component of most basic refractory bricks. It is a cubic form of magnesium oxide ( Mg O). In nature it usually forms a solid solution with wüstite (FeO) and is then referred to as ferropericlase or magnesiowüstite. It was first described in 1840 and named from the Greek περικλάω (to break around) in allusion to its cleavage. The type locality is Monte Somma, Somma-Vesuvius Complex, Naples Province, Campania, Italy. The old term for the mineral is ''magnesia''. Stones from the Magnesia region in ancient Anatolia contained both magnesium oxide and hydrated magnesium carbonate as well as iron oxides (such as magnetite). Thus these stones, called ''Stones from Magnesia'' in antiquity, with their unusual magnetic properties were the reason the terms ''magnet'' and ''magnetism'' were coined. Periclase is usually found in marble produced by metamorphism of dolomitic lim ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Perovskite
Perovskite (pronunciation: ) is a calcium titanium oxide mineral composed of calcium titanate (chemical formula ). Its name is also applied to the class of compounds which have the same type of crystal structure as , known as the perovskite (structure), perovskite structure, which has a general chemical formula . Many different cations can be embedded in this structure, allowing the development of diverse engineered materials. History The mineral was discovered in the Ural Mountains of Russia by Gustav Rose in 1839 and is named after Russian mineralogist Lev Perovski (1792–1856). Perovskite's notable crystal structure was first described by Victor Goldschmidt in 1926 in his work on tolerance factors. The crystal structure was later published in 1945 from X-ray diffraction data on barium titanate by Helen Dick Megaw. Occurrence Found in the Earth's Mantle (geology), mantle, perovskite's occurrence at Khibiny Mountains, Khibina Massif is restricted to the silica under-saturat ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Silicate
A silicate is any member of a family of polyatomic anions consisting of silicon and oxygen, usually with the general formula , where . The family includes orthosilicate (), metasilicate (), and pyrosilicate (, ). The name is also used for any salt of such anions, such as sodium metasilicate; or any ester containing the corresponding chemical group, such as tetramethyl orthosilicate. The name "silicate" is sometimes extended to any anions containing silicon, even if they do not fit the general formula or contain other atoms besides oxygen; such as hexafluorosilicate . Most commonly, silicates are encountered as silicate minerals. For diverse manufacturing, technological, and artistic needs, silicates are versatile materials, both natural (such as granite, gravel, and garnet) and artificial (such as Portland cement, ceramics, glass, and waterglass). Structural principles In most silicates, a silicon atom occupies the center of an idealized tetrahedron whose cor ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Subduction
Subduction is a geological process in which the oceanic lithosphere and some continental lithosphere is recycled into the Earth's mantle at the convergent boundaries between tectonic plates. Where one tectonic plate converges with a second plate, the heavier plate dives beneath the other and sinks into the mantle. A region where this process occurs is known as a subduction zone, and its surface expression is known as an arc-trench complex. The process of subduction has created most of the Earth's continental crust. Rates of subduction are typically measured in centimeters per year, with rates of convergence as high as 11 cm/year. Subduction is possible because the cold and rigid oceanic lithosphere is slightly denser than the underlying asthenosphere, the hot, ductile layer in the upper mantle. Once initiated, stable subduction is driven mostly by the negative buoyancy of the dense subducting lithosphere. The down-going slab sinks into the mantle largely under its own ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Seismic Velocity
A seismic wave is a mechanical wave of acoustic energy that travels through the Earth or another planetary body. It can result from an earthquake (or generally, a quake), volcanic eruption, magma movement, a large landslide and a large man-made explosion that produces low-frequency acoustic energy. Seismic waves are studied by seismologists, who record the waves using seismometers, hydrophones (in water), or accelerometers. Seismic waves are distinguished from seismic noise (ambient vibration), which is persistent low-amplitude vibration arising from a variety of natural and anthropogenic sources. The propagation velocity of a seismic wave depends on density and elasticity of the medium as well as the type of wave. Velocity tends to increase with depth through Earth's crust and mantle, but drops sharply going from the mantle to Earth's outer core. Earthquakes create distinct types of waves with different velocities. When recorded by a seismic observatory, their d ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
