The Earth, contrary to popular belief, is not a perfect sphere, but a planet covered in bulges and variations.
And one of these peculiarities is located in the Indian Ocean, where a huge gravitational anomaly has formed a “hole” about three million square kilometers in size at the bottom of the sea.
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Discovery
Long ago, surveys made with the help of research vessels and measurements of satellites revealed a low geoid in this region, which is an undulating form of the Earth's gravitational field.
This low resulted in a vast depression at the bottom of the Indian Ocean, causing a “tug of war” between the geoid and the surrounding gravities.
Researchers from the Indian Institute of Science investigated the origin of this anomaly and proposed that the cause lies more than a thousand kilometers below the earth's crust.
According to them, the cold and dense remains of an ancient ocean sank into a “plate graveyard” under the
Africa about 30 million years ago, stirring hot molten rocks.In 2018, scientists at the National Center for Polar and Oceanic Research in India deployed seismometers to map the area and detected hot plumes of molten rock rising from under the Indian Ocean.
Now, Pal and Ghosh have depicted the formation of the massive geoid by modeling how tectonic plates have moved over the last 140 million years.
They found that plumes of hot, low-density magma floated below the cavity and were responsible for creating the low geoid.
These plumes arose about 20 million years ago in the southern Indian Ocean and intensified as they spread under the lithosphere towards the Indian Peninsula.
New research is still needed
Some scientists are not convinced by this theory, arguing that there is still no clear seismographic evidence of the presence of these simulated plumes. However, new studies may provide more data soon.
For now, it is known that the geoid low will persist for many millions of years. This unique geological peculiarity at the bottom of the Indian Ocean is one of the many surprises that Earth has in store for researchers, showing the complexity and diversity of our planet.
