- 7 weeks ago
New research shows that parts of Earth’s ancient crust, once considered among the most stable structures on the planet, are beginning to break apart deep underground. Scientists are also studying evidence of a massive water reservoir hidden within the mantle, sometimes referred to as a “sixth ocean,” which offers new insight into Earth’s internal composition and its long-term evolution. These findings highlight how active and complex the planet’s interior remains, even after billions of years. Animation is created by Bright Side.
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00:00It's been there for over 3 billion years, but now some of the Earth's oldest crust is falling apart.
00:07Today, our continents seem stuck in place.
00:11But over a long, long time, they've moved and shifted around a lot.
00:15It's all thanks to tectonic activity, which makes part of Earth's surface slowly slide around like pieces of a giant puzzle.
00:23Some of the most stable parts of these puzzle pieces are called cretins.
00:27Cretins are super old and strong sections of rock that form the roots of continents and keep them together.
00:34The North American cretin is one of them.
00:36It makes up a big part of the United States, about half of Canada, and most of Greenland.
00:43Scientists have singled out about 35 of these big ancient cretins around the world.
00:48They've mostly stayed in the same place for hundreds of millions of years because of how strong they are.
00:53But in 2014, they discovered that cretins might not be as indestructible as they thought.
01:01Some cretins had lost parts of their strong roots because of certain geologic processes and became thinner.
01:07It looks like cretins could become less stable if they go through more tectonic changes.
01:12In 2024, scientists at China University of Geosciences analyzed an ancient landmass called the North China Cretin, or NCC for short.
01:24They wanted to learn more about how some of Earth's oldest rock regions can break apart.
01:29This process of cretins disintegrating is called decretinization.
01:34The NCC is so interesting to study because it has three main parts – the Western Bloc, the Eastern Bloc, and the Trans-North China Orogen, a zone that lies between the two blocks.
01:46Scientists found that during the Mesozoic era, the Eastern Bloc lost its deep ancient roots because of the strong Earth movements called tectonomagmatic events.
01:56So scientists wanted to see exactly how the processes in the mantle and the movements of Earth's plates led to the breaking down of the NCC.
02:05They created 4D models showing how the NCC's shape changed over time, including its surface shape, how its layers stretched, and the way earthquake waves moved through it.
02:16They found that a section of the tectonic plate slid beneath the cretin and then began to roll back.
02:21This rolling and stretching made the strong rock thin out and eventually lose stability.
02:28All this started around 200 million years ago, back during the Jurassic period, when dinosaurs were rocking the world.
02:36The North China cretin isn't the only place where this decretinization process can happen.
02:42Other cretins, like those in North America, South America, and China's Yangtze region, may have gone through similar changes.
02:49Scientists say this shows how the continents on Earth have slowly changed and evolved over billions of years.
02:56And it looks like, when it comes to geology, there's no place that is 100% safe from changes.
03:02But it's no cause for alarm.
03:05You don't notice this, but our planet never stops moving and is perfectly normal.
03:10But sometimes, this movement still brings dramatic changes.
03:14In 2017, scientists made an official announcement that Zealandia can be called a new continent.
03:21The continental shelves of this mysterious continent are lying at a depth of around 3,280 feet below sea level.
03:29The nearest oceanic crust dives even deeper, at 9,800 feet below that.
03:36Geologists have gone deep down to collect rocks from the ocean floor.
03:39They have found that, unlike the nearby oceanic crust, which is made up of fresh basaltic rocks,
03:45the crust around New Zealand is a mix of ancient granite, limestone, and sandstone.
03:51All this screams continental crust.
03:53Plus, scientists have discovered a narrow strip of oceanic crust that separates Australia from the hidden land of Zealandia.
04:01It means these two are separate continents.
04:0385 million years ago, Zealandia decided to break free from the supercontinent Gondwana.
04:10Millions of years later, the mighty Pacific Plate, the heavyweight champion of tectonic plates,
04:16decided to take a dive beneath Zealandia's continental crust.
04:20And that's how the root of Zealandia, that connection to its continental crust, broke off and went into the depths below.
04:27And that's not all the tectonic news from this part of the world.
04:30120 million years ago, Australia and Antarctica were a single piece of land.
04:37They went there separate ways, but Antarctica didn't leave empty-handed.
04:42Today, there's an oceanic plateau in the Indian Ocean.
04:46Long ago, it was connected to another lost continent, the Kyrgyzian microcontinent.
04:51Scientists believe that it made a land bridge between India and Antarctica.
04:55To find out what it was like, we can look at a tiny archipelago in the southern Indian Ocean.
05:02These islands are all that is left of the ancient landmass.
05:05They have a cold climate and feature glaciers because they're so close to Antarctica.
05:10But in the past, the weather here must have been temperate with plenty of rainfall.
05:15The animals and plants would have been similar to those that live in tropical regions today.
05:19Another lost and found continent isn't hiding in the ocean, but under Europe.
05:26It's called Greater Adria, and it collided with Europe and started to sink under it around 100 million years ago.
05:33Today, it lies beneath Italy, Greece, and the Balkans.
05:36Its size and even shape match that of Greenland, the world's largest island.
05:41Greater Adria is no longer visible, but it left some clues.
05:45Part of it was embedded in the Alps.
05:48The other chunks are part of present-day Italy and Croatia, on the other side of the Adriatic Sea.
05:55Limestone rocks from the former continent started to change once they were under the European landmass.
06:01Great heat and pressure spread over tens of millions of years changed their structure.
06:06And that's when the limestone left the chat, and the marble took its place.
06:11Greater Adria wasn't a solid piece of land like the big continent we see today.
06:15But more like a giant shallow shelf underwater.
06:19Over time, sand, mud, and other stuff settled on this shelf and slowly turned into rock.
06:25Greater Adria might have been a little like Zealandia or the Florida Keys, a chain of small islands sitting in a shallow sea.
06:33Above the water, there were probably lots of little islands and archipelagos.
06:37And beneath the waves, there were colorful coral reefs filled with marine life.
06:42If you lived back then and had a scuba tank, it would have been an amazing place to dive and explore.
06:49So, with all the things going on with the Craytons, who knows?
06:53We could see a new continent in the future.
06:56Plus, studying the Earth's crust even deeper can change history as we know it.
07:01Scientists in Copenhagen have made an amazing discovery about the real birthplace of Scandinavia.
07:07And it's not where we thought.
07:09After studying sand and rock from remote parts of Finland, they found out that Scandinavia's roots actually came from Greenland over 3.75 billion years ago.
07:20This means the area where Nordic countries are now is 250 million years older than the scientists had previously believed.
07:28And we now know, thanks to the tiny crystals called zircons found in Finnish river sands.
07:34When scientists looked closely at their chemical makeup, they realized the age of crystals matched the rocks found in Greenland, not Scandinavia.
07:43They used special techniques to analyze elements like uranium, lead, luteum, and hafnium,
07:49and discovered that Scandinavia's rocky base most likely broke off from Greenland billions of years ago.
07:55A small seed of land probably started drifting across the Earth's surface over hundreds of millions of years.
08:02This piece eventually settled where Finland is today.
08:05Over time, new layers of rock formed around this seed and slowly turned into the Scandinavia we see on maps now.
08:14The same study could help us rethink how the continents on Earth first formed.
08:18The most accepted theory is that the continental crust began growing right when the planet was formed.
08:25But new studies show that the signs of continents only started growing a billion years later.
08:31The scientists explain that Earth's continents may have begun as tiny seeds of ancient crust in different places.
08:38These seeds grew over time, forming the landmass as we know today.
08:42These ancient seeds aren't just found in Scandinavia, but also in Australia, South Africa, and India.
08:50Scientists aren't sure if all these seeds came from the same place, or if they grew separately in different parts of the world.
08:56So there's still a lot to learn, and scientists need to keep digging to figure out if all these ancient seeds are related to each other.
09:03Our planet has five oceans.
09:08The Pacific, Atlantic, Indian, Southern, and Arctic.
09:12Not counting Billy Ocean.
09:14But it seems there's a sixth one out there, too.
09:17It's just that you can't see it.
09:19Scientists have found evidence of large amounts of water hidden in the transition zone.
09:24That's the boundary layer that separates the upper and lower mantle of our planet.
09:29That boundary goes hundreds of miles deep down below the surface.
09:33Natural diamonds usually form in the mantle, but at depths of up to 155 miles.
09:39Some of them are very rare.
09:41They may come from deeper depths.
09:43That was the case with this fascinating diamond that formed 410 miles below the surface.
09:49The gem was big enough for scientists to study it and determine what it was made of.
09:54They were surprised when the composition of this very rare diamond showed that it was formed in pretty watery conditions.
10:01Because of that, such a diamond wouldn't be worth much in jewelry stores, but it was priceless in the lab.
10:08So could this mean there's an ocean under the surface of our planet?
10:12It would definitely get us closer to the idea Jules Verne had about this whole magical secret world inside Earth, including the ocean.
10:21But that's not exactly the case.
10:24The water is there, true.
10:26But it's not like you can enjoy the view watching waves splashing around like on the surface of our planet.
10:32The water is actually stored within the minerals.
10:35That's why this area is so wet.
10:38Let's now move to Africa to keep up with the story.
10:41Or, to be more specific, to a spot called the Afar region.
10:45It's part of Ethiopia and a place where three tectonic plates meet.
10:49Tectonic plates are large pieces of our planet's crust that slowly move.
10:55These movements cause earthquakes and produce volcanoes, mountains, deep underwater valleys we call trenches, and so on.
11:03And the Afar Valley is where the Arabian, Somali, and Nubian plates meet.
11:08Together, they form an intersection in the shape of a Y.
11:12Why? Let me tell you.
11:14These plates are moving all the time.
11:16The Somali plate is moving southeast toward the Australian and Indian plates.
11:22The Arabian plate is moving north, getting closer to the Eurasian plate.
11:26At some point, it will close the Persian Gulf.
11:29This movement of plates has created something we call the Great Rift Valley.
11:34Considering there are, you know, all these cool rifts.
11:37The Aden Ridge to the east.
11:39The Red Sea Rift to the west.
11:41The Oculus Rift and the East African Rift to the south.
11:45But the East African Rift is something we want to focus on, because this one could be the key to this potential sixth ocean, but this time on the surface.
11:56A continental rift is a spot where two tectonic plates that form a single continent start to separate.
12:03Here, it's the Somali and Nubian plates.
12:05Together, they're parts that make up Africa.
12:08If they keep moving in separate directions, this currently continental rift may become what we call an oceanic spreading ridge.
12:16In other words, when the plates are far enough apart from each other, there will be an enormous crack between them.
12:23This way, magma will freely flow up from beneath them.
12:27It'll be cool and eventually start creating a new ocean floor.
12:31Africa will be split into two parts, and there will be a new ocean flowing between what will turn into two mini-continents.
12:39Nope, it's not time to get your swim trunks and sunscreen yet.
12:43Even if the Somali and Arabian plates do move far enough to form an oceanic spreading ridge, it'll take millions of years before this happens.
12:53So I guess it's more interesting to stick to exploring this sixth ocean below the Earth's surface for now.
12:59The idea of subsurface oceans goes beyond the borders of our planet.
13:04It's possible many moons and planets out there have them too.
13:08Our home planet is the only one we know about with consistent bodies of liquid water on the surface, true.
13:15In our solar system, we circle around the Sun in something called the habitable zone.
13:20The temperature and atmospheric pressure within this zone allow water to remain in liquid form all the time.
13:28But a couple of moons in our solar system could also contain significant amounts of water under their surface.
13:34In setilus, one of Saturn's moons, is the first one.
13:39In setilus is a small frozen ball, seven times smaller in diameter than our moon.
13:45But it's the sixth biggest moon of Saturn.
13:48Nearly a decade ago, a spacecraft found evidence that there was a large ocean under its surface.
13:54It found and sampled water from the eruptions that resembled geysers.
13:58A geyser is a rare type of hot spring that erupts and sends jets of steam and water into the air.
14:05You know, like Old Faithful in Yellowstone.
14:08Well, this water was erupting through fissures in the ice at the south pole of the moon.
14:13That means there might be a liquid ocean under the thick layers of ice.
14:17The ocean there is almost nothing like ours.
14:20The ocean on Earth is relatively shallow, on average 2.2 miles deep, and it covers three-quarters of our planet's surface.
14:29It gets colder the closer you come to the seafloor, and is warmer if you stay close to the surface because of the sun's rays.
14:36But the subsurface ocean on setilus is at least 18 miles deep.
14:42It's cooler at the top, because that part is near the ice shell, and warmer at the bottom because of the heat coming from the moon's core.
14:50But both our ocean and the ocean on setilus are salty.
14:55Setilus is one of the few places in our solar system that has liquid water, which makes it an interesting spot to search for signs of life.
15:03Another one is Europa, one of Jupiter's moons.
15:07Scientists think similar eruptions of water could be happening there.
15:12Knowing there are such geysers there tells us these moons have their own source of energy.
15:17Maybe the energy that makes the water erupt comes from gravity or radiation.
15:23The same energy could keep a large body of liquid water under the ice.
15:27It could even support some forms of life.
15:30There are thousands of planets beyond our solar system that orbit other stars.
15:36Some are even in the habitable zone.
15:38Over a quarter of the ones that we know about could have liquid water.
15:42But the majority of them probably have oceans under their surface, like in setilus and Europa.
15:49Pluto might be on this list too, since it's possible it hides a liquid ocean under its thick frozen shell.
15:55This subsurface ocean likely formed long after the dwarf planet did, after the heat coming from radioactive elements in Pluto's core melted some of its ice.
16:06There's also something called water worlds.
16:09Those are moons or planets with global oceans that are more common than we thought.
16:14I mean, some call Earth a water world too.
16:1871% of its surface is water after all.
16:21And when you look at our home planet from space, you mostly get those blue marble pictures.
16:27When exploring other planets, especially those outside of our solar system, researchers often go with a policy of follow the water.
16:36After all, water is the main element we know that's necessary for supporting life.
16:41And when there's a water world that's close to its parent star, scientists assume it must have formed way farther and then moved closer once its orbit shrank.
16:52The composition of the planet was set when it was in a colder orbit, or, in other words, when it made a wider circle around its star.
17:01We call the process of orbital shrinking a migration.
17:04And if water worlds are really that common, it can be proof that migration really happens.
17:11Exoplanets are all those planets that orbit around other stars, not our sun.
17:16Some exoplanets may have oceans that are way deeper than any of those in our solar system.
17:22Hundreds or even thousands of miles deep.
17:25Our Mariana Trench is scary, and it's not even 7 miles deep.
17:29And those exoplanet oceans are, wow, almost bottomless.
17:35That's it for today.
17:36So hey, if you pacified your curiosity, then give the video a like and share it with your friends.
17:41Or if you want more, just click on these videos and stay on the bright side!
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