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A giant , sombrero - shaped rock music formation is growing in the Andes as magma curtsy up like a blob in a lava lamp , new research has found .
These findings , detailed in the Oct. 12 issue of the diary Science , could cast off luminosity on thebirth of supervolcanoescapable of extravasation far greater than ever see in immortalise history , the scientists that investigated the phenomenon said .
ENVISAT satellite collecting data of the spot of magma uplift over South America.
The team of researchers looked at the tumid fighting body of magma in Earth ’s continental crust , a geographical zone about 180 Roman mile ( 300 kilometers ) wide and 3,300 feet ( 1,000 meters ) thick and lying at a deepness of about 11 miles ( 18 kilometer ) under the Altiplano - Puna tableland in the central Andes region . This arena at the border of Argentina , Bolivia and Chile has have intense volcanism for about 10 million year .
work like a sombrero
After break down 20 age of satellite and seismal data of the part ’s surface with computer models , the researchers indicate themagma is ballooning , forming a immense buoyant sphere in the heart of the crust that is bobbing upwards . This blob is technically hump as a " diapir , " and this inquiry is the first to identify an active magma diapir rise through the crust in the present day .
ENVISAT satellite collecting data of the spot of magma uplift over South America.
The diapir has caused the surface above it to ascend at a nearly unvarying rate of about 10 millimeter ( 0.4 inches ) per twelvemonth for at least two decades . That is about the pace at which fingernails grow .
" It ’s a subtle apparent movement , labor up little by fiddling every day , but it ’s this perseveration that makes this uplift unusual , " said researcher Yuri Fialko , a geophysicist at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography at the University of California , San Diego . " Most other magmatic systems that we have sex about show installment of pompousness and deflation . " [ 50 Amazing Volcano Facts ]
In the all-embracing photo , Earth ’s control surface is getting press up across an arena about 60 miles ( 100 kilometer ) wide while the ring surrounding it sinks . This has contribute to ageological odditythe shape of a wide - brimmed Mexican sombrero hat .
A still from an animation illustrating “sombrero uplift,” with a central peak surrounded by subsidence. CREDIT: Yuri Fialko, SIO/UCSD
Supervolcano cue ?
This " sombrero upheaval " could help yield insights on the initial stages of the births of supervolcanoes , which are adequate to of eruptions dwarf anything ever recorded by humanity , spewing out thou of sentence more magma and ash tree than even thecatastrophic Krakatoa extravasation of 1883 .
" Those were truly disaster - eccentric events , " Fialko said . " We know they did happen in the Altiplano - Puna sphere in the past tense . "
The researchers noted that sombrero uplift might also be taking station elsewhere on the planet .
" Activity observed around Socorro , N.M. , provides a very interesting comparing to that notice in the Altiplano - Puna , " Fialko tell OurAmazingPlanet . " The Socorro anomalousness is centered on the second- prominent active magma consistence known on continental impudence . "
The Socorro anomaly apportion a number of remarkable similarities with the Altiplano - Puna , such as a orotund volume of molten stone at standardized depths , seismal activity in the upper Earth’s crust , and a farseeing - term uplift of the surface .
" In fact , in the case of Socorro we have grounds that the upheaval remain for at least 100 year , " Fialko say . " Such similarities may be revelatory of a common mechanism . "
