Thick Layer of Magma Found Under American Southwest

news.yahoo.com ^ | Fri Jun 22, 1:10 PM ET | Staff

[Esther Ruth]

Thick Layer of Magma Found Under American Southwest

Ker Than LiveScience Staff Writer LiveScience.com Fri Jun 22, 1:10 PM ET

Scientists have spotted a thick layer of melted rock beneath the Earth’s crust that could be part of a fluid band of hot magma circling the globe. The magma ring has until now remained a theory.

The molten-rock layer is 10 miles thick and can’t be seen, felt or smelt from the surface. Researchers Daniel Toffelmier and James Tyburczy of Arizona State University found the layer using a relatively new technique that measures changes in weak electrical currents flowing through the Earth’s mantle rock.

The current is created when the solar wind, a continuous flow of charged atomic particles emitted by the sun, interact with Earth’s magnetic field, called the magnetosphere.

The chemical make-up of the rocks affects their conductivity. By measuring changes in the current at different depths, the scientists were able to detect distinct rock layers, including the "invisible" magma layer.

“Rocks are semiconductors,” Tyburczy said. “And rocks with more hydrogen embedded in their structure conduct better, as do rocks that are partially molten.”

The discovery, detailed in the June 21 issue of the journal Nature, partially confirms a recent hypothesis by two Yale University geoscientists, which states that a band of molten magma circles the Earth about t 250 miles beneath the planet’s crust, near a hypothetical “transition zone” separating the planet’s two mantle layers.

The idea is that as the rock rises from the lower mantle to the upper mantle, it expels all the water in its crystal structure and melts.

The researchers detected the molten layer beneath Tucson, Arizona. They aren’t sure how far the sheet extends, but say there is little chance any of the molten rock will erupt at the surface.

The discovery only partially confirms the Yale scientists’ idea, since it reveals a molten magma layer only beneath one spot on the Earth. But “finding that sheet of melt-rock tells us we’re on the right track,” Tyburczy said.

[madison10]

Maybe THAT is why we have global warming...it’s real global warming, not some made-up, we’re polluting the earth so it’s getting hot fairy-tale

[battlegearboat]

Mickey Mantle was from Oklahoma.

Looks like he's having another hot streak.

[Monkey Face]

Since the Earth is a living, breathing mass, it stands to reason it will “cycle” between warming and cooling trends. There is nothing “man-made” about it, and any man who believes he is strong enough to stop it is the epitome of arrogance.

The fact that there is magma under the surface should be more of in indication as to why we have earthquakes. The earth surface shifts because the under surface shifts. Makes sense to me....

But then, I’m not a scientist. I just look for logical reasons why something happens.

[ken5050]

Most excellent....(g)

[Ernest_at_the_Beach]

I'm not suire what the researchers are claiming as new....

The Yahoo article has this as a related article:

Finally, a Solid Look at Earth's Core

***********************************EXCERPT********************************

By Robert Roy Britt, LiveScience Senior Writer
posted: 14 April 2005 02:04 pm ET

Scientists have long thought Earth's core is solid. Now they have some solid evidence.

The core is thought to be a two-part construction. The inner core is solid iron, and that's surrounding by a molten core, theory holds. Around the core is the mantle, and near the planet's surface is a thin crust -- the part that breaks now and then and creates earthquakes.

The core was discovered in 1936 by monitoring the internal rumbles of earthquakes, which send seismic waves rippling through the planet. The waves, which are much like sound waves, are bent when they pass through layers of differing densities, just as light is bent as it enters water. By noting a wave's travel time, much can be inferred about the Earth's insides.

Yet for more than 60 years, the solidity of the core has remained in the realm of theory.

A study announced today involved complex monitoring of seismic waves passing through the planet. The technique is not new, but this is the first time it's been employed so effectively to probe the heart of our world.

************************snip**************************

What's Down There

[BenLurkin]

"They aren’t sure how far the sheet extends, but say there is little chance any of the molten rock will erupt at the surface.

"

Ha! We know better ...

[Ernest_at_the_Beach]

Not seen this before:

The idea is that as the rock rises from the lower mantle to the upper mantle, it expels all the water in its crystal structure and melts.

So the Earth generated the OCEANS?

[NonValueAdded]

Note to self, stop digging at 249 miles in.

[Ernest_at_the_Beach]

Yahoo related article.....

Blobs Inside Earth Might Explain Rapid Mountain Building

*********************************EXCERPT*****************************

By Robert Roy Britt, LiveScience Managing Editor
posted: 27 January 2006 09:30 am ET

The Andes mountains rose to their dizzying heights in as little as 7 million years, a new study concludes.

The research, reported today in the journal Science, adds to another recent study that found mountains grow much more quickly than scientists had thought.

How it's done needs to be rethought, and one idea involves a giant blob of material inside the Earth.

"These results really change the paradigm of understanding of how mountain belts grow," says Carmala Garzione at the University of Rochester. "We've always assumed that the folding and faulting in the upper crust produced high elevation mountains. Now we have data on ancient mountain elevation that shows something else is responsible for the mountains' uplift."

The challenge

As mountains rise, they are constantly weathered, making it hard for scientists to look back in the geologic record and figure out just how tall they were at any moment.

Scientists look at plant fossils in soil layers and apply knowledge of what elevations the plants would have grown at. But climates change and plants adapt, so the method is imprecise.

"Estimates of the timing of mountain range formation often differ by millions of years, even for geologically young areas," write geoscientists Michael Poage and C. Page Chamberlain in a separate article in the journal analyzing the new work.

Garzione and colleagues examined sediments that had collected over time at the base of a mountain in the Andes. There she found a record of the altitude from which the sediments came, by looking at clues such as how much oxygen was in the rainwater that eroded the sediment.

The evidence suggested the Andes shot up between 10 million and 7 million years ago.

"When I first showed this data to others, they had a hard time believing that mountains could pop up so quickly," Garzione said this week.

The research was led by Prosenjit Ghosh and John M. Eiler of the California Institute of Technology.

[SunkenCiv]

Ping!

[Ernest_at_the_Beach]

Any Magma Blobs under Australia?

See post #10....

The Outback needs some mountains....

[SunkenCiv]

“The Andes mountains rose to their dizzying heights in as little as 7 million years, a new study concludes.”

Less than that. Much less. :’)

[SunkenCiv]

Some unanswered questions [This Dynamic Earth, USGS]
USGS | Last updated: May 5, 1999 | jmwatson@usgs.gov
Posted on 06/22/2007 2:12:01 PM EDT by SunkenCiv
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/1854712/posts

[Fred Nerks]

http://www.beachbrowser.com/Archives/Science-and-Health/March-2000/Australian-Volcanoes.htm

Mt Shank, one of the youngest volcanoes in Australia, is part of the Newer Volcanics Province, a complex of volcanic centres across south-eastern Australia. The Newer Volcanics Province covers an area of 15 000 km2 and contains over 400 vents including Mt Gambier. Mt Shank is a scoria cone formed when magma came in contact with groundwater. Charcoal found beneath the volcanic deposits has been dated at 18 000 years old suggesting that the volcano was active from then till 540 years before present.

there's gotta be something down there...

[Steve Van Doorn]

Oops I meant to put this here: Sorry

“the blue blobs show where colder, denser material is sinking into the mantle.”

“red blobs are warmer plumes of less dense material, rising principally into the ocean-ridge spreading centers. A huge plume seems to be feeding spreading at the East Pacific Rise directly from the core.”

Nevada Seismological lab

There is a lot of good information on this site.

[SunkenCiv]

sure, now ya tell me. ;’)

[shadowcat]

I can’t wait for the time that we flip like a pancake..
cornmeal

[this_ol_patriot]

The Earth is one big lava lamp.

[Steve Van Doorn]

Exactly, which begs the question is the crust strong enough to hold when a very large lava ball pulls down? Right now the east cost is being pulled down and so is all of Australia.

If it is great. But how about Yellowstone at present the ½ Caldera is being pulled down the other half is being pushed up. What happens if all of it is being pushed up?