{"id":108582,"date":"2020-06-12T10:22:28","date_gmt":"2020-06-12T17:22:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2020\/06\/seismic-waves-reveal-giant-structures-deep-beneath-earths-surface"},"modified":"2020-06-12T10:22:28","modified_gmt":"2020-06-12T17:22:28","slug":"seismic-waves-reveal-giant-structures-deep-beneath-earths-surface","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2020\/06\/seismic-waves-reveal-giant-structures-deep-beneath-earths-surface","title":{"rendered":"Seismic waves reveal giant structures deep beneath Earth\u2019s surface"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a class=\"aligncenter blog-photo\" href=\"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog.images\/seismic-waves-reveal-giant-structures-deep-beneath-earths-surface2.jpg\"><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Analysing data from hundreds of major earthquakes, Doyeon Kim at the University of Maryland and his colleagues have found a new structure beneath the volcanic Marquesas Islands in the South Pacific Ocean. The structure, known as an ultra-low velocity (ULV) zone, is about 1000 kilometres in diameter and 25 kilometres thick, says Kim.<\/p>\n<p>These structures are called ULV zones because <a href=\"http:\/\/newscientist.com\/article\/dn28700-earthquake-detectors-pick-up-wartime-explosions-and-helicopters\/\">seismic waves<\/a> pass through them at slower velocities, but what they are made of is still a mystery. They might be chemically distinct from Earth\u2019s iron\u2013nickel alloy core and silicate rock mantle, or have different thermal properties.<\/p>\n<p>The researchers discovered the structure while analysing 7000 records of seismic activity from <a href=\"http:\/\/newscientist.com\/article\/2224901-underwater-internet-cables-can-detect-offshore-earthquakes\/\">earthquakes<\/a> that occurred around the Pacific Ocean basin between 1990 and 2018. The earthquakes all had a magnitude of 6.5 or greater, and were all deeper than 200 kilometres below Earth\u2019s surface.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Analysing data from hundreds of major earthquakes, Doyeon Kim at the University of Maryland and his colleagues have found a new structure beneath the volcanic Marquesas Islands in the South Pacific Ocean. The structure, known as an ultra-low velocity (ULV) zone, is about 1000 kilometres in diameter and 25 kilometres thick, says Kim. These structures [\u2026]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":396,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[19],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-108582","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-chemistry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/108582","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/396"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=108582"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/108582\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=108582"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=108582"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=108582"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}