In the middle of the Atlantic Ocean there is a line that separates the American tectonic plate from those of Europe and Africa–the mid-Atlantic ridge.
A new discovery has been made that adds to the debate about the mechanism leading to the movement of tectonic plates. An international team of researchers, led by the University of Southampton, images for the first time the mantle transition zone, a zone located between the depths of 410-660 km, which is thinner than average, characterised by high temperatures. These conditions favour the vertical movement of the mantle facilitating flow from the lower to the upper mantle all the way to the surface and eventually contributing to the opening of the Atlantic Ocean. The study was published in the prestigious journal Nature in an article entitled “A thin mantle transition zone under the equatorial Mid-Atlantic Ridge.
This was a large-scale project funded by the European Research Council and the Natural Environment Research Council, the UK’s leading public funder of environmental science. Maltese scientist Matthew Agius was the lead author in the study together with principal investigator Catherine Rychert and Nicholas Harmon from the University of Southampton.
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-020-03139-x
