{"id":230500,"date":"2026-02-04T05:26:10","date_gmt":"2026-02-04T11:26:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2026\/02\/solid-iron-rich-megastructure-under-hawaii-slows-seismic-waves-and-may-drive-plume-upwelling"},"modified":"2026-02-04T05:26:10","modified_gmt":"2026-02-04T11:26:10","slug":"solid-iron-rich-megastructure-under-hawaii-slows-seismic-waves-and-may-drive-plume-upwelling","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2026\/02\/solid-iron-rich-megastructure-under-hawaii-slows-seismic-waves-and-may-drive-plume-upwelling","title":{"rendered":"Solid, iron-rich megastructure under Hawaii slows seismic waves and may drive plume upwelling"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a class=\"aligncenter blog-photo\" href=\"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog.images\/solid-iron-rich-megastructure-under-hawaii-slows-seismic-waves-and-may-drive-plume-upwelling2.jpg\"><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Mantle plumes beneath volcanic hotspots, like Hawaii, Iceland, and the Galapagos, seem to be anchored into a large structure within the core-mantle boundary (CMB). A new study, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.science.org\/doi\/10.1126\/sciadv.adz1962\" target=\"_blank\">published<\/a> in <i>Science Advances<\/i>, takes a deeper dive into the structure under Hawaii using P-and S-wave analysis and mineralogical modeling, revealing its composition and properties.<\/p>\n<p>It is known that anomalous structures exist within Earth\u2019s lower mantle, including large low-velocity provinces (LLVPs) and ultra low-velocity zones (ULVZs), which cause seismic waves to slow down dramatically. Larger ULVZs, typically referred to as <a href=\"https:\/\/phys.org\/news\/2022-05-puzzling-features-deep-earth-interior.html?utm_source=embeddings&utm_medium=related&utm_campaign=internal\" rel=\"related\">mega-ultra low velocity zones<\/a>, are found near the CMB and often beneath oceanic hotspots like Hawaii. Mega-ULVZs can be over several hundred kilometers in length. Previous studies have linked these megastructures to mantle plumes and some say they may preserve primordial geochemical signatures.<\/p>\n<p>However, current tomographic methods have been unable to fully analyze mega-ULVZs, and their composition and origin remain unclear. Seismic waves, on the other hand, present a way to investigate ULVZs, largely due to the effect ULVZs have on wave velocity.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Mantle plumes beneath volcanic hotspots, like Hawaii, Iceland, and the Galapagos, seem to be anchored into a large structure within the core-mantle boundary (CMB). A new study, published in Science Advances, takes a deeper dive into the structure under Hawaii using P-and S-wave analysis and mineralogical modeling, revealing its composition and properties. It is known [\u2026]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":427,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[19],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-230500","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-chemistry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/230500","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\/427"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=230500"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/230500\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=230500"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=230500"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=230500"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}