Why are you asking the question of me? Do you see where they've proven a new layer exists?
No? Then they've merely postulated a new layer could exist and even their own words verify that.
Words mean things.
Yeah, words mean things....
I agree...
Perhaps I should take my complaint to the author of the misleading title.
Frankly, it means nothing to me if they postulate a claim, or they use words like is, will, must. rather than could, might, or wouldcouldashoulda....
Like I said, it’s semantics and science is full of it these days. These modern day bozos do not want their asses on the line if the paper is found to be faulty so they use semantics.
In reality, the title is correct because all baloney aside, that is what they are claiming.
All they have really discovered is what they expected to find and that is a area of slightly cooler material in the place where the plate makes it decent into the mantle. They then extrapolate that this is stagnant and therefore relevant somehow..Perhaps if they come back to the same place and run the same tests in about 10 years, and they can assure me that the same material is still stagnant, I might find that to be relevant to the geological activity of the earth over time.
There really is no new layer, but that’s what they claim.
All the might’s, could’s and if’s aside. Their data is not usable for anything like quake prediction or further extrapolations unless they repeat it over a period of years/decades while logging plate movement as well.
I don’t want to belabor this issue any longer then needed, but for me, sometimes I find it hard to just let things go.
I’m not necessarily directing this at you so don’t take it personal.
I have a counter postulation to issue to the claimers of a newly discovered layer.
I think what they are observing “could” be the heat sink like effect of the entire length of the descending plate (some 900+ miles according to their data).
The fracture lines along the surfaces front, back and sides of the descending rock mass could tend to isolate it to some degree like a thermos bottle insert. It would remain cooler then the surround rock because the heat from the mantle would be siphoned off by the length of the rock mass.
As I explained, just like a heat sink in electronics.
This “could” be responsible for their postulated stagnation and their so called “stiffer” layer.
But then again, I am not a geologist.