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00:04 Our planet's crust is made up of multiple giant slabs of Earth
00:07 called tectonic plates.
00:09 And while one might conclude that all rocky worlds probably
00:11 have a similar tectonic assembly, they don't.
00:14 And researchers might finally know
00:15 why our planet seems to have this relatively rare structure.
00:19 Around 4.5 billion years ago, a giant object
00:21 called Theia, which was around the size of Mars,
00:23 crashed into the protoplanet Earth.
00:26 This essentially redid the planet and created the moon.
00:28 But new research suggests it also
00:30 changed the way Earth would behave
00:32 for the rest of its days.
00:33 The new study outlines how the impact increased temperatures
00:36 at the core mantle boundary, kicking off
00:38 plate tectonic movement.
00:40 With the researchers writing, quote,
00:42 "In this study, we perform whole mantle convection models
00:44 to illustrate that strong mantle plumes can arise,
00:47 weaken the lithosphere, and eventually initiate
00:50 subduction about 200 million years after the giant impact."
00:53 Subduction is where one tectonic plate goes under another
00:56 and is driven into the Earth's mantle.
00:58 The plumes that are mentioned still occur today.
01:00 And they arise from blobs of material
01:02 that have increased temperatures over the rest of the mantle.
01:04 The researchers add this is also due to the type of material
01:07 that make up these hot blobs, which they say are iron rich
01:11 and most likely contain material from Theia.
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01:17 (upbeat music)
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