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According to Live Science (This article and its images were originally posted on Live Science October 9, 2018 at 04:02PM.)
The Earth’s mantle acts like a giant churn, circulating cool oceanic crust downward toward the core, where it heats up into a goopy solid and then rises again — a process that powers everything from plate tectonics to volcanism.
But there are some hitches in this system, and new research reveals why: A slippery layer about 416 miles (670 kilometers) deep stops chunks of crust in their tracks, creating “stagnant slabs” in the middle of the mantle, the layer between the Earth’s crust and its core. [In Photos: Ocean Hidden Beneath Earth’s Surface]
“This deflection of slabs was always puzzling to our understanding of [the mantle],” said Shijie Zhong, a physicist at the University of Colorado Boulder and the co-author of the new study published Oct. 1 in the journal Nature Geoscience.
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