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Journey to the mantle of the Earth

Journey to the mantle of the Earth
Journey to the mantle of the Earth
Retrieving a sample of Earth's mantle has been an overarching ambition of the geoscience community for more than a century. In 1909, the Croatian meteorologist Andrija Mohorovi?i? noticed that seismic waves travelling below about 30 kilometres underground move faster than those above that depth, indicating a fundamental change in the composition and physical properties of the rocks. He had discovered the upper boundary of Earth's mantle, now known as the Mohorovi?i? discontinuity, or 'Moho' for short. This boundary marks the start of the bulk of Earth's interior, which extends from the base of Earth's crust — at 30–60 kilometres under the continents but just 6 kilometres under the thinner crust of the oceans — to the core 2,890 kilometres below.
0028-0836
437-439
Teagle, Damon
396539c5-acbe-4dfa-bb9b-94af878fe286
Ildefonse, Benoît
226d2f9b-a624-47df-b62e-6edba9ce59cd
Teagle, Damon
396539c5-acbe-4dfa-bb9b-94af878fe286
Ildefonse, Benoît
226d2f9b-a624-47df-b62e-6edba9ce59cd

Teagle, Damon and Ildefonse, Benoît (2011) Journey to the mantle of the Earth. Nature, 471 (7339), 437-439. (doi:10.1038/471437a).

Record type: Article

Abstract

Retrieving a sample of Earth's mantle has been an overarching ambition of the geoscience community for more than a century. In 1909, the Croatian meteorologist Andrija Mohorovi?i? noticed that seismic waves travelling below about 30 kilometres underground move faster than those above that depth, indicating a fundamental change in the composition and physical properties of the rocks. He had discovered the upper boundary of Earth's mantle, now known as the Mohorovi?i? discontinuity, or 'Moho' for short. This boundary marks the start of the bulk of Earth's interior, which extends from the base of Earth's crust — at 30–60 kilometres under the continents but just 6 kilometres under the thinner crust of the oceans — to the core 2,890 kilometres below.

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Published date: 2011

Identifiers

Local EPrints ID: 178401
URI: http://eprints.soton.ac.uk/id/eprint/178401
ISSN: 0028-0836
PURE UUID: bc52550f-f3e3-4373-b4bf-9a4785bd0d1d
ORCID for Damon Teagle: ORCID iD orcid.org/0000-0002-4416-8409

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Date deposited: 24 Mar 2011 11:24
Last modified: 15 Mar 2024 03:05

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Contributors

Author: Damon Teagle ORCID iD
Author: Benoît Ildefonse

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