An international research collaboration has harnessed supercomputing power to better understand how massive slabs of ancient ocean floors are shaped as they sink hundreds of kilometers below Earth’s surface.

Sophisticated computer models developed by researchers in the UK, Switzerland and the U.S. have cast new light on the complex physical interactions which govern the sliding and sinking of the ancient ocean floor, also referred to as subducted slabs, through Earth’s mantle, a process known as subduction.

Researchers from the University of Glasgow led the study. Their paper, “The Role of the Overriding Plate and Mantle Viscosity Structure on Deep Slab Morphology,” is published in Geochemistry, Geophysics, Geosystems.