- 1 day ago
Far below our feet, scientists have discovered something massive — two mysterious blobs buried deep inside Earth. 🌋 These colossal structures, each larger than continents, might be the key to understanding the planet’s most powerful forces. They could be driving earthquakes, fueling volcanic eruptions, and even shaping the evolution of life itself. In this video, we’ll dive into the latest research that’s revealing what these blobs are made of, where they came from, and what they might be doing right now beneath us. Some experts think they could even explain the future of Earth’s magnetic field. Whatever they are — they’re changing how we see our planet from the inside out. 🌍⚡ Animation is created by Bright Side.
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00:00Deep inside our planet, there are two massive blobs of rock that have puzzled scientists for years.
00:06They sit deep inside, opposite each other.
00:09One lurks under the Pacific Ocean, the other under Africa.
00:13And they're so weird, they even make seismic waves slow down.
00:18Their actual name is Large Low-Velocity Provinces.
00:21But they're just two enormous, mysterious blobs of rock.
00:25Bigger than continents, stranger than anything else inside the Earth.
00:29And so dense, they might be leftovers from another planet.
00:33Until recently, no one knew what they were, where they came from, or why they even exist.
00:40These mysterious blobs could hold the secret to Earth's deepest forces.
00:44Powerful enough to shape earthquakes, drive volcanic eruptions, and even influence the evolution of life itself.
00:52And now, we might finally learn the truth about them.
00:55These geological monsters are hidden about 1,800 miles beneath the surface.
01:01Each one is 100 times taller than Mount Everest.
01:04So vast, they defy explanation.
01:07Now, at first, scientists thought these were primordial remnants from Earth's early days.
01:12Maybe something giant smashed into Earth about 4.5 billion years ago,
01:17and this impact formed both the Moon and these blobs.
01:20Scientists believe it could have been a planet named Thea,
01:23a Mars-sized planet that existed somewhere around the asteroid belt and slammed into Earth back in the day.
01:31Others believe it could be something much more familiar, old chunks of Earth's crust.
01:36Perhaps they got pushed deep into the mantle by the movement of tectonic plates.
01:40And now, a new study shows that these blobs are massive piles of oceanic crust
01:46that have been sinking into the Earth for billions of years.
01:49They could have formed from the stuff that sinks into Earth when tectonic plates collide.
01:54Over a billion years, pieces of ocean crust could have been swallowed by the mantle.
01:59Eventually, they collected into two massive regions deep inside the planet.
02:04But even though both blobs form the same way, they aren't identical.
02:08There's this place called the Pacific Ring of Fire,
02:12a giant loop of volcanoes and earthquake zones around the Pacific Ocean.
02:17Well, the Pacific blob doesn't just stop growing and changing
02:21because it's constantly being fed fresh rock from that place.
02:25Tectonic plates crash into each other,
02:27and one plate sinks beneath another,
02:30pushing old ocean crust deep into the Earth.
02:32Since this keeps happening, the Pacific blob is heavier,
02:36denser, and more active than its twin under Africa.
02:40It's like a giant hot rock factory,
02:43constantly getting new material and reshaping itself over time.
02:47The African blob is much older and quieter than the one under the Pacific.
02:52It doesn't get fresh rock pushed into it as often.
02:55That's why, over time, it has blended more with the surrounding mantle.
02:59Since it's less dense, it behaves differently.
03:03It rises higher into the Earth's mantle,
03:06stretching 340 miles closer to the surface.
03:09And that might be why Africa has so many powerful volcanoes and rift valleys today.
03:15The biggest question is, how do they keep evolving?
03:19Scientists think that huge columns of hot rock called mantle plumes
03:23might be pushing up from deep inside the Earth,
03:26helping to drive the movement of tectonic plates in the Pacific.
03:29If they're right, then these giant underground blobs aren't just sitting there.
03:34They're almost alive in a way.
03:36They'd be constantly changing and shaping the surface of our planet.
03:40But why do they even matter?
03:42Because these weird underground structures may be shaping Earth's surface
03:47in ways we don't fully understand yet.
03:50You see, first, they might influence Earth's magnetic field.
03:54That's because they affect how heat moves through the mantle and core.
03:57They might also hold clues about the history of plate tectonics.
04:02Studying them could help us figure out when subduction began on Earth,
04:06whether it was over 4 billion years ago or much more recently.
04:10These guys might also be secret puppet masters behind volcanic activity.
04:16There's a theory that blazing hot rock from deep inside the Earth,
04:20the same kind that creates volcanic hotspots,
04:23might be rising straight from the giant blobs in the mantle.
04:26Some of the biggest volcanoes on Earth, including those in Hawaii, Iceland, and Yellowstone,
04:32sit directly above the suspected rising plumes from these blobs.
04:37If these blobs are fueling these volcanoes,
04:39then they could be responsible for shaping Earth's continents,
04:43climate, and even mass extinctions throughout history.
04:46And well, that's horrifying.
04:48That would mean that these giant structures might burst through Earth's crust one day,
04:53unleashing catastrophic super-volcanic eruptions.
04:56And these eruptions would last for millions of years.
05:00Beneath the Earth's surface also lies monsters, unlike anything else on this planet.
05:05Super-volcanoes.
05:07They're so massive, so destructive, and so rare,
05:10that no human has ever witnessed one erupt.
05:13A regular volcanic eruption can be terrifying.
05:17Lava spewing into the sky, ash choking the air,
05:20entire cities buried under fire and stone.
05:23But a super-volcano?
05:25Well, that's something else entirely.
05:28A super-volcano isn't just big, it's a category of its own.
05:32Their eruptions rip apart the Earth itself,
05:35creating massive craters called calderas.
05:38Some of them are over 30 miles wide.
05:40A regular volcanic eruption might spew out a few cubic miles of lava and ash.
05:46A super-volcano unleashes more than 240 cubic miles of material.
05:52That's enough to bury an entire continent in ash.
05:55An eruption like this would be newsworthy, to say the least.
05:59First, a wall of fire would blow up into the sky.
06:03Ash would block out the sun for years, dropping global temperatures.
06:07Entire countries could be buried under meters of ash,
06:10making farming impossible.
06:12Famine, extreme cold, and toxic air could wipe out entire civilizations.
06:17It wouldn't just be a local disaster, it would be global.
06:21In fact, two of the worst mass extinctions in Earth's history,
06:25where almost all life was wiped out,
06:27might have been caused by super-volcanoes, not asteroids.
06:31The biggest and most horrifying one was at the end of the Permian period.
06:35Literally, about 90% of all marine species and 70% of land species went poof.
06:42Scientists have counted about 20 super-volcanoes on Earth today.
06:46The most famous ones are Yellowstone in the US,
06:50Toba in Indonesia, and Topau in New Zealand.
06:53Now, the last time Yellowstone erupted was roughly 2 million years ago.
06:57It released almost 590 cubic miles of material,
07:02enough to bury a city like New York.
07:04That was just one of three Yellowstone super-eruptions.
07:08The most recent super-volcano to erupt was Topau in New Zealand.
07:12This happened about 26,500 years ago.
07:16But super-volcanoes don't just destroy.
07:19They reshape the entire planet.
07:21About 74,000 years ago, the Toba super-volcano erupted in Indonesia.
07:28Some scientists believe it triggered a volcanic winter that lasted an entire decade.
07:33There are also theories that suggest that this eruption nearly wiped out early humans.
07:38It reduced their numbers to just a few thousand survivors.
07:42Although that's just speculation.
07:44Either way, we know for sure that super-volcano eruptions have changed the course of history.
07:50So, how do we prepare for them if this could happen at any moment?
07:55Well, scientists monitor volcanoes constantly, looking for warning signs.
08:00It could be stuff like rising magma, ground swelling, earthquakes beneath a volcano,
08:05changes in gas emissions, and so on.
08:08The problem is that while we can predict short-term eruptions,
08:12the long-term ones are still a mystery.
08:15Yellowstone last erupted 630,000 years ago.
08:18It's literally overdue for another eruption already.
08:22But volcanoes don't work like clocks.
08:24Just because one erupted in the past doesn't mean it will definitely go wild again.
08:29And the time between eruptions could be random.
08:33Scientists think Yellowstone could erupt again,
08:35but it might be just a small lava flow instead of a super-eruption.
08:39Are we ready for a super-eruption if it happens?
08:43Probably not.
08:44Scientists say we're more prepared for an asteroid strike than a super-volcano eruption.
08:50When Hunga Tonga Hunga Ha'abai erupted in 2022,
08:54it cut off communications, caused tsunamis, and filled the sky with ash.
08:59And that was only a magnitude 5 eruption.
09:02A super-volcano would be orders of magnitude worse.
09:05So, good luck sleeping at night knowing these guys will erupt again.
09:10Maybe tomorrow.
09:11Maybe in 100,000 years.
09:14Nah, don't lose sleep over it.
09:16A long, long time ago,
09:19a huge meteorite smashed into the Earth with a horrible destructive power.
09:24It was several times bigger than the one that wiped out the dinosaurs 65 million years ago.
09:29Luckily, there were no lives it could have taken,
09:32or else it would have been a real catastrophe.
09:35Now, scientists think it did leave behind a huge footprint,
09:39the massive Antarctica Impact Crater that is bigger than the entire state of New York.
09:44The location also has a gravitational Wilkes-Land anomaly going on.
09:51At first, scientists noticed something weird here
09:53when they measured Earth's gravity in that region.
09:56A strange gravity hole, or a negative gravity anomaly.
10:01Later, with better technology, they found something even weirder.
10:05There was a positive gravity anomaly inside that gravity hole,
10:10a spot with stronger gravity.
10:11This kind of structure, called a mascon, short for mass concentration,
10:18often shows up in places where giant space rocks or meteorites have slammed into the planet.
10:24When a meteor hits hard enough,
10:26it punches through the Earth's crust and shakes the mantle below.
10:29It can spring back up and leave behind a super-dense plug of material,
10:34which causes stronger gravity right in the center of the crater.
10:38It's something like a frosty donut,
10:40with ice filling the gap and a dense center rising up from underneath.
10:45In 2018, scientists used advanced scanning techniques
10:48to study and map the Wilkes-Land meteorite impact in more detail than ever before.
10:54They saw that it wasn't a perfect circle, but more of a U-shape,
10:59and the northern part looked like something had broken it apart.
11:03It possibly happened when Australia split away from Antarctica about 35 million years ago.
11:09Some scientists even think you can still see parts of the crater in southern Australia today.
11:14This clue also supports the idea that the giant crater under Antarctica
11:19formed before the continents broke apart.
11:23There have been different ideas about what created this strange formation.
11:28Some said it might be a volcano or an eroded valley,
11:32or even a sedimentary basin.
11:34That is a place where sediments build up over millions of years.
11:37But many scientists now believe the most likely explanation is a massive meteor impact.
11:45It was possibly one of the biggest to ever hit Earth.
11:49A 2015 study even estimated the age of the crater
11:52as its size matches the kind of space rocks
11:55that smashed into Earth between 4.1 and 3.8 billion years ago.
12:00The Wilkes Land meteorite impact was so powerful
12:04because the meteor that caused it could have been up to 30 miles wide.
12:08That's four to five times wider than the Chicxulub meteor
12:11that wiped out the dinosaurs 66 million years ago.
12:16Even that meteor was enough to cause massive destruction with wildfires,
12:20acid rain, tsunamis, and a climate crash
12:23that wiped out about 75% of all existing life.
12:27So, it was lucky in a way that the meteorite that gave us
12:31the giant crater under Antarctica
12:33visited at a time when there were only microbes
12:36and no plants or animals on Earth.
12:39It didn't cause mass extinction or leave behind charcoal from ancient fires,
12:44but it may have changed the entire planet.
12:48Still, scientists haven't put the Wilkes Land Anomaly mystery in the solved files
12:53because the crater is buried deep under Antarctica's thick ice sheet.
12:58It's hard to study up close.
13:00Scientists say we can't rule out the other ideas just yet,
13:04but if the meteor theory is right,
13:06then the Wilkes Land Crater could be the largest known impact crater on Earth.
13:11So far, this title belongs to another contestant,
13:16the Vredefort Crater in South Africa.
13:18Right now, the crater is around 99 miles wide,
13:23which is huge.
13:24But it's not as wide as the Chicxulub Crater in Mexico,
13:28which is about 112 miles wide.
13:31But the Vredefort Crater used to be way bigger,
13:34around 155 to 174 miles wide,
13:39before time and erosion wore it down.
13:41That means, even though the Chicxulub impact was striking,
13:46the Vredefort impact was likely even more powerful,
13:49the biggest one we know of that hit Earth.
13:53According to the latest study,
13:55that asteroid was 12.4 to 15.5 miles wide
13:59and might have hit Earth at a speed of 45,000 to 56,000 miles per hour.
14:05It's important for science,
14:07because knowing the real size of this impact
14:09helps us build better models to understand Earth's geology
14:13and how giant impacts shape planets even beyond Earth.
14:20Measuring ancient craters is really tricky.
14:23Over 2 billion years,
14:25erosion wears away the edges
14:26and newer rocks form over the crater.
14:29That's what happened to Vredefort.
14:31Now, only small bits of the original crater rim are visible
14:35and the rest is hidden under newer rock.
14:38To figure out its true size,
14:40scientists studied minerals like quartz and zircon
14:43found around the crater.
14:45These minerals still have fractures and shock patterns
14:48that show us how powerful the blast was.
14:52Wilkes Land Anomaly isn't the only case on our planet
14:55where gravity is acting weirdly.
14:58For over 40 years,
15:00scientists were trying to solve a strange mystery in Canada.
15:03Parts of the country,
15:05especially around Hudson Bay,
15:07seem to have less gravity than the rest of the world.
15:11That means if you stepped on a scale there,
15:13you'd weigh just a tiny bit less than usual.
15:17Researchers first discovered this weird difference in the 1960s
15:20when they were mapping Earth's gravity.
15:23Gravity is linked to mass.
15:26The more mass there is,
15:27the stronger the gravity.
15:28And since Earth isn't shaped perfectly like a ball
15:31but is slightly squashed at the poles and bulges at the equator,
15:35it makes sense that its mass isn't spread out evenly.
15:39So, the first out of the two main theories
15:42to explain the Hudson Bay mystery
15:44has to do with magma.
15:46Yes, that super-hot, gooey rock deep under our planet's surface.
15:51Magma constantly churns like boiling soup
15:54in a process called convection.
15:57As this magma moves,
15:59it can drag parts of Earth's crust down with it.
16:02That makes the area lighter,
16:04which lowers the gravity.
16:06The second area has to do with the Laurentide Ice Sheet,
16:10a massive glacier that covered much of Canada
16:13during the last ice age.
16:15This ice was up to 2.3 miles thick
16:17in some parts of Hudson's Bay.
16:19That's like stacking 10 Empire State Buildings
16:22on top of each other.
16:23Because it was so heavy,
16:25the ice pressed the land down
16:27like a thumb on a sponge.
16:30Even though the ice melted away
16:31about 10,000 years ago,
16:33the land underneath is still slowly bouncing back,
16:37kind of like a memory foam mattress
16:39after you get up.
16:41This slow rise is called glacial rebound
16:43and it's happening at less than half an inch per year.
16:47Until the land fully bounces back,
16:50which could take 5,000 more years,
16:52it will continue to have less mass.
16:54And that means less gravity.
16:58Both of these theories are right.
17:01To figure this out,
17:02scientists used super-advanced satellites,
17:05which floated around 300 miles above Earth
17:07for several years.
17:09These satellites flew in pairs
17:11and detected how far apart they were pulled
17:13as they passed over areas like Hudson Bay
17:16to measure tiny changes in gravity.
17:19When the front satellite passed over a low-gravity area,
17:23it drifted just slightly
17:24and that change was recorded.
17:27Thanks to this research,
17:28scientists created detailed maps
17:30showing what Hudson Bay looked like
17:32during the last ice age.
17:34They discovered two huge bulges
17:36on the west and east sides
17:38where the ice was thickest.
17:39And those spots have the weakest gravity today.
17:43The effects of this are still visible.
17:46And while sea levels are rising
17:47in most parts of the world,
17:49the land around Hudson Bay is rising so fast
17:52that sea levels there are actually dropping.
17:55Solving mysteries like this
17:57or the Antarctica Impact Crater anomaly
17:59gives scientists amazing insights
18:01into the past of our planet.
18:04And by understanding how past changes
18:06in temperature and geology affected Earth,
18:09scientists can predict
18:10how today's human activity
18:12can impact our future.
18:17That's it for today.
18:18So hey, if you pacified your curiosity,
18:20then give the video a like
18:22and share it with your friends.
18:23Or if you want more,
18:24just click on these videos
18:25and stay on the Bright Side.
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