A small pool of water comes from Panama. A collaborative team, including WHOI researchers, discovered abnormal geochemical compounds beneath this region, revealing details about Earth as a dynamic system. The Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution has a credit.
Researchers are using volcanic gasses to track large-scale movements in Earth's deep interior. Scientists from the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute have discovered anomalies beneath Panama.
The team used data from fluids and rocks to show that the volcanic material is from the Galapagos plume, over 900 miles away. The findings of the study, "High 3He/4He in central Panama reveals a connection to the Galpagos", were published today in the journal.
David Bekaert is a researcher at WHOI and the lead author of a paper.
When the organisms bleed, it's kind of like magma bleeding out of the Earth. You can measure the composition of that magma just like you can measure a blood type. We measured an unexpected volcanic gas composition, like when a human has a rare blood type. In the case of the Earth, we try to understand where it came from.
The team showed that hot material from Earth's deep interior travels through the shallow mantle like wind blowing at Earth's surface. The source and direction of the so-called "mantle wind" was determined by combining chemical observations with a survey of Earth's deep interior.
Material cannot easily pass through a subduction zone, where the edge of a tectonic plate acts as a barrier. The region beneath Panama appears to have a "slab window" that allows the mantle wind to blow through. The study shows that our planet is a dynamic system marked by large-scale movements of solid material, miles beneath our feet.
There are exotic volcanic chemical features in Central America. These chemical characteristics are used as indicators for geological processes. Our findings help explain why volcanic material shows up in central Panama even though there are no active volcanoes there.
The work suggests that small bits of deep mantle material were carried through the subduction zone. Peter Barry is an assistant scientist at WHOI and the senior author of the paper.
Many of the study's samples were collected over the past 15 years, but only in light of the insights from other disciplines of geoscience.
The Earth's interior is very diverse in its composition. It has been established that the main channels for transporting material deep underground are the rising and falling of superheated rock in the Earth's mantle. The discovery of transport of deep, exotic material across the Earth's interior could have far-reaching implications for the understanding of the chemical evolution of our planet over geological time.
David V. Bekaert and his team found a connection between the Galpagos and central Panama in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. There is a book titled "10.1073/pnas.2110118997".
The National Academy of Sciences has a journal.
The wind blows through a window beneath Panama.
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