by Humanity has always had its eyes on the sky, on the stars, this unknown world which seemed infinite and spread out before immensity, it was he who loved it. And just like that, she missed everything that was happening under her feet.
But with new technologies, it turns out that a whole world full of mysteries and strange phenomena is hidden deep within the earth – from underground rivers to diamond factories. A world that, beyond the curiosity of scientists, certainly excites the imagination of conspiracy theorists.
Here are five of those mysteries:
Goliath: An Underground Ocean
It sounds incredible, but beneath the Earth’s surface there appears to be a gigantic reservoir containing enough water to fill every ocean three times! The discovery of this waterway named “Goliath” began in 2014 when American scientists installed thousands of seismometers to measure signals from around 500 earthquakes. The data provided evidence for the existence of “ringwoodite”, a rock that forms under enormous pressure, some 700 kilometers below our feet.
THE “ringwoodite” is incredibly absorbent and the researchers calculated that if only 1% of the rock is underwater, then there is also an ocean underground that breaks all records for size.
“Ringwoodite is like a sponge that absorbs water. There is something very special about its crystal structure that allows it to attract hydrogen and trap water,” geophysicist Steve Jacobsen told reporters.This mineral can hold unimaginable amounts of water under conditions inside the Earth’s mantle”.
Unknown “structures” near the nucleus
In 2020, geophysicists from PThe University of Maryland announced that it had discovered something very strange while searching the archives of seismic waves. The data showed signs of hot regions of very dense rock between the core and the mantle. Scientists have looked at these “structures” in the past, but new research has provided a clearer picture of their nature and properties.
Studying signals beneath the Pacific Ocean basin, the Maryland team gathered evidence of a previously unknown structure under the Marquesas Islands in the South Pacific. As lead researcher Doyeon Kim explained, “By focusing on thousands of antidotes simultaneously that were on the boundary between the mantle and the core, instead of focusing on a few at a time as usually done, we gained a whole new perspective on things. .”
The giant river under Antarctica
Deep in Antarctica there is a river that stretches 460 km, far longer than the Thames in London. Scientists discovered the “water behemoth” using an aircraft-mounted radar system. Aerial surveys have revealed that the giant river flows under the Antarctic ice sheets and empties into the Weddell Sea.
“When we first discovered lakes under the ice of Antarctica a few decades ago, we thought they were isolated from each other,” said Martin Siegert of Imperial College London. “Now we are beginning to understand that there are entire systems there, interconnected by vast river networksas they might have been if there hadn’t been thousands of meters of ice above them.”
“Diamond factory” in the heart of the Earth
In 2022, researchers discovered a potential diamond factory in the center of the earth. The team of American scientists used highly specialized technology to successfully mimic the extreme conditions prevailing in the heart of the planet. Harsh x-rays and lasers can create tremendous heat and pressure like the one that lies miles below our feet.
Scientists believe that about 90% of Earth’s carbon is in the core. Sometimes this carbon interacts with hydrated minerals that have descended from miles higher and ended up in the oceanic crust.
Scientists decided to study what happens when carbon, water from minerals and molten iron from the core combine under extreme conditions. It turns out that water and iron react to create oxides and hydroxides, the same way metal rusts here on the surface. But the only difference is that the liquid crucible can turn all that carbon into diamonds.
Magnetic waves no one has seen before
Strange and undetectable phenomena of all kinds pass the Earth every day – from dark particles to unknown waves. But thanks to the European Space Agency (ESA) and their Swarm satellite project, we now know a little more about what is going on inside our planet.
By analyzing data collected by Swarm, ESA scientists have discovered an entirely new type of magnetic wave. He the unprecedented ripple sweeps across the surface of the outer core at a speed of 1500 km per year. It may seem slow, but it’s much faster than scientists predict.
“Geophysicists have long theorized the existence of such waves,” explained Nicolas Zillet, who led the study. “But most people thought they were taking place on much longer time scales than our research has shown. Measurements of the magnetic field by instruments based on the Earth’s surface have shown that there are had some sort of wave action, but we needed the global coverage that measurements from space provide to reveal what’s really going on.”
Source: Listverse.com
