Although rare at the Earth’s surface, diamonds may be commonplace at depths of 120 to 150 kilometers below the surface within the lithosphere of old continents.
Earth's crust
Posted inResearch Spotlights
Magma Flow in a Major Icelandic Eruption
Mechanical modeling suggests that previous, undetected eruptions released tectonic stress near the ice-covered Bárðarbunga volcano.
Posted inNews
Weight of Water Dropped by Hurricane Harvey Flexed Earth’s Crust
The precipitation that fell during the storm depressed the ground in parts of Texas, Louisiana, Arkansas, and Mississippi by as much as 1.8 centimeters in some places.
Posted inResearch Spotlights
Is the Lower Crust Convecting Beneath Mid-Ocean Ridges?
The first attempt to couple models of hydrothermal circulation and magmatic convection along fast-spreading ridges may explain the spacing of hydrothermal vent fields along the East Pacific Rise.
Posted inResearch Spotlights
Measuring Earth’s Elasticity
A new study illuminates how crustal rocks break and stretch.
Posted inResearch Spotlights
Massive Waves of Melting Greenland Ice Warped Earth’s Crust
A novel method uses shifting bedrock to trace pulses of mass that propagate down a glacier.
Posted inResearch Spotlights
A Better Model for How the Mantle Melts
A new model of the melting behavior of certain mantle rocks gives researchers a better understanding of the source of oceanic lavas.
Posted inScience Updates
Making a Better Magnetic Map
A new version of the World Digital Magnetic Anomaly Map, released last summer, gives greater insight into the structure and history of Earth's crust and upper mantle.
Posted inEditors' Vox
Frontiers in Geosystems: Solving the Puzzles
Putting some publishing action into deep Earth-surface interactions
Posted inResearch Spotlights
Variable Mantle Lies Below Ancient Pieces of Earth's Crust
Underneath old and stable pieces of Earth's crust in North America, the mantle's uppermost portion contains multiple layers that change the velocities of seismic waves.