Hydrogen is the most abundant element in the solar system. There are various configurations of hydrogen on Earth. Hydrogen exists as water vapor in the atmosphere, and water and ice in the ocean and land water, fluids in the magma and volcanoes, minerals in the crust and mantle, and with metallic iron in the core.
Scientists at the University of Liverpool have demonstrated that deep sea fault zones could transport much larger amounts of water from the Earth’s oceans to the upper mantle than previously thought.
A study by Carnegie’s Yanhao Lin and Michael Walter demonstrates that a key mineral called stishovite is capable of storing and transporting large amounts of water even under the extreme conditions found in Earth’s lower mantle.
Carbon is not only essential to life and Earth’s habitability but also traces and modifies geological processes of subduction, partial melting, degassing and change in the composition of rocks, providing valuable insights into Earth’s evolution.
Plate tectonics determines how the surface of the Earth is shaped over geological time; however, we do not know how this process started. New research by a group of geoscientists demonstrates that diamonds can be used to reveal how a buoyant section of mantle beneath some of the continents became thick enough to provide long …
The water content of Earth’s mantle is a key measurement of Earth’s water budget. Global recycling of water on Earth drives important forms of volcanism such as island arcs, controls the flow of upper-mantle fluid and plays a role in the evolution of mantle plumes.
Diamonds that formed deep in the Earth’s mantle contain clues of chemical reactions that occurred on the seafloor and can help geoscientists understand how material is exchanged between the planet’s surface and its depths.
The cause of Earth’s deepest earthquakes has remained a mystery until now. New research by a team of Carnegie scientists provides evidence that fluids play a key role in deep-focus earthquakes which occur between 300 and 700 kilometers below the planet’s surface.
