11 amazing Earth discoveries since 2022
Explorers have climbed the planet’s highest peak and dug the deepest ocean trench, yet the land still brims with mysteries waiting to be discovered.
Every year, scientists unravel the mystery hidden in the third rock from the sun, and this year was no exception. From a hidden network of glaciers in Antarctica to alarming new discoveries about the San Andreas Fault, here are some of the most surprising secrets we’ll learn about our home planet in 2022.
1. A 300-mile-long river under the ice in Antarctica
This year, scientists discovered A A river flowing under the ice cap in Antarctica It was along the River Thames in England. Scientists found the subterranean pathway, which drains an area the size of Germany and France combined, using ground-penetrating radar.
Scientists say the discovery of this hidden meltwater drainage system could be the “missing link” explaining where and how ice melts in Antarctica.
2. A dinosaur-killing asteroid caused earthquakes that lasted for months
The asteroid that wiped out the non-avian dinosaurs began 66 million years ago The most famous earthquakes that shook the planetNew research revealed. Evidence of the massive earthquake has been detected in rocks around the Chicxulub impact crater in Mexico.
However, some of the twisted, wrinkled rock layers from this catastrophic crash contained traces of pollen – evidence that life was beginning to revive six months after the impact.
3. A massive solar storm 10 times larger than the Carrington event has been detected
a A massive solar storm larger than the Carrington Event, it was discovered in fragments of ancient rocks. Traces of radioactive releases of beryllium, chlorine and carbon in rocks from Greenland reveal that a massive proton storm hit Earth’s magnetosphere in 660 BC, or 2,600 years ago. Other evidence suggests that large proton storms may have struck three times in the past few thousand years.
Researchers said the previously unknown storm occurred before electricity, satellite and telecommunications, but if a similarly powerful storm hit now, the damage could be massive.
4. Blobs in the mantle feed a diamond factory near Earth’s core
Two giant blobs of rock beneath Africa and the Pacific Ocean may be driving diamond production The researchers found it at the boundary between the Earth’s core and mantle – the middle layer.
Where the core meets the mantle, liquid iron meets solid rock at extreme temperatures and pressures. Previous research has suggested that these extreme conditions, along with water trapped in mantle rocks, could fuel chemical synthesis, such as the formation of diamonds.
To test this idea, the researchers collected chemicals normally found at the core-mantle boundary and subjected them to crushing pressures under a diamond anvil. They yielded small diamonds, suggesting that blobs in the mantle, also called extremely low velocity regions, may be places where water dissolves and thus fuels diamond formation.
5. A 4-billion-year-old piece of Earth’s crust was found
Scientists found a A 4-billion-year-old chunk of Earth’s crust is hiding in Western Australia. The hidden rock was found near where the oldest minerals on earth were found in Jack Hills, Australia.
The ancient rocks span an area of about 38,610 square miles (100,000 square kilometers). Crust of roughly the same age can be found all over the world, the researchers said, indicating that some transition occurred on Earth around that time.
6. The most powerful lightning bolt ever discovered
a The giant jet fired into space was perhaps the most powerful bolt of lightning ever detectedthe researchers said. The first jet detectors above a cloud in Oklahoma in 2018. Now, scientists have finally analyzed the plane’s radio wave emissions using radar and satellite data. The jet jolted a massive amount of energy into the ionosphere, the layer of charged particles that separates Earth’s upper atmosphere from empty space. The study found that the bolt produces 60 times as much energy as a typical lightning bolt.
7. The city of towering hydrothermal vents discovered in the depths of the ocean
Scientists driving a remotely operated vehicle just a few hundred miles off Mexico spotted it A huge area of towering hydrothermal vents On the sea floor 1.5 miles (2.5 kilometers) below the surface of the Pacific Ocean.
The huge vents, up to 40 feet (12 meters) high and resembling candelabra, gush out mineral-rich water that likely starts at a temperature of 818 degrees Fahrenheit (437 degrees Celsius).
The newly discovered vents are part of the East Pacific Rising, a chain of underwater volcanoes that stretches from the Gulf of Mexico to Antarctica.
8. Discovery of an ancient source of oxygen for early life
Scientists discovered that ancient source of oxygen that could have fueled the emergence of early life on Earth. Powerful earthquakes struck the planet nearly 3.8 billion years ago, cracking it like an egg. The combination of near-boiling water and seismic activity could have generated the oxygen needed for some early life on Earth.
The oxygen would have come packaged in the form of hydrogen peroxide, which is poisonous to life but could nonetheless be harnessed by ancestral life forms similar to extremophiles and archaea. The researchers suggested that these ancient life forms would have thrived in the warm temperatures of the early oceans, and could have figured out ways to detoxify hydrogen peroxide to harness the oxygen. This oxygen source may have predated photosynthesis, the current dominant source of the planet’s oxygen, by up to a few hundred million years (Opens in a new tab).
9. Rock quakes the size of mountains under the canals of Japan
a Mountain-sized rocks hidden under Japan could trigger earthquakes in the area. The igneous rock, dubbed the Kumano pluton, lies just a few miles beneath the crust of the Eurasian continental plate beneath the Kii Peninsula. In this region, the Philippine plate is submerging under the Eurasian plate, and the pluton probably changes the angle of that subduction.
Researchers have discovered that two large earthquakes struck in the 1940s but did not meet, and the pluton may be a major culprit.
10. Oldest evidence of plate tectonics discovered
Scientists have Discover the oldest evidence of plate tectonics, in tiny crystals from South Africa. Each crystal is no larger than a grain of sand, and it showed that the Earth’s crust broke apart and began to move about 3.8 billion years ago.
These cortex movements may not be complete tectonic plates, the modern process by which the Earth’s crust is continually recycled in its interior. But it’s possible that the protoplast conveyor belt was already floundering by then. The researchers said this plate motion occurred shortly after the crust formed, about 4.1 billion years ago.
11. THE MIDDLE OF THE SAN ANDREAS Fault CAN UNLEASH BIG EARTHQUAKES
crawl ‘Middle’ section of San Andreas fault could unleash larger earthquakes than previously thought. Previous work suggested that the San Andreas fault in this area, between Parkfield and Hollister, cannot generate earthquakes larger than magnitude 6.0. The study authors found that earthquakes generating more than 10 times the energy — greater than magnitude 7.0 — have struck this fault zone in the past few million years.
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