{"id":227724,"date":"2025-10-20T15:17:11","date_gmt":"2025-10-20T15:17:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/227724\/"},"modified":"2025-10-20T15:17:11","modified_gmt":"2025-10-20T15:17:11","slug":"a-gravity-anomaly-from-2007-may-have-impacted-earth-in-one-unusual-way","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/227724\/","title":{"rendered":"A \u2018gravity anomaly\u2019 from 2007 may have impacted Earth in one unusual way"},"content":{"rendered":"

A \u2018gravity anomaly\u2019 may sound dramatic, but as defined by EBSCO<\/a>, they pertain to \u201cdeviations in the expected measurements of gravity at specific locations on Earth, primarily influenced by variations in subsurface rock density\u201d \u2013 and French academics have identified an \u201cunusual gravity signal\u201d which took place over the Atlantic Ocean<\/a> in early 2007.<\/p>\n

Using data from NASA<\/a>\u2019s Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment satellites (referred to as GRACE for short), the study team write in their conclusion: \u201cWe have identified an anomalous large-scale gravity gradient signal in the eastern Atlantic ocean, maximum at the beginning of 2007, which cannot be fully explained by surface water sources nor core fluid flows.\u201d<\/p>\n

The academics say the signal occurred between 2006 and 2008 and spanned an area of 7,000 kilometres. They also note that at around the same time as the anomaly, a \u201cdistinct\u201d jerk was \u201cobserved in the same region using satellite magnetic data\u201d.<\/p>\n

No, this particular space jerk isn\u2019t Elon Musk<\/a>, but rather a geomagnetic jerk<\/a>, where the Earth\u2019s magnetic field \u201csuddenly and unexpectedly accelerates\u201d.<\/p>\n

– YouTube www.youtube.com<\/a> <\/p>\n

The study, published in Geophysical Research Letters<\/a> in August, suggests part of the aforementioned \u201cunusual gravity signal\u201d is reflective of \u201crapid mass redistributions\u201d deep in the Earth\u2019s mantle \u2013 that\u2019s the middle layer between our planet\u2019s crust\/outer layer, and core.<\/p>\n

And the researchers write that such \u2018distributions\u2019 may come from \u201ctemporal changes in the depth\u201d of a transition which occurs in the main mineral found in the lower mantle, bridgmanite.<\/p>\n

In summary, unusual gravity signals may be caused by \u201crapid mass distributions\u201d within the Earth\u2019s mantle, which may be causing the geomagnetic jerks, which may be caused by changes concerning the lower mantle mineral known as bridgmanite.<\/p>\n

Got it?<\/p>\n

Why not read\u2026<\/p>\n

Sign up<\/a> to our free Indy100 weekly newsletter<\/p>\n

How to join<\/a> the indy100’s free WhatsApp channel<\/p>\n

Have your say in our news democracy. Click the upvote icon at the top of the page to help raise this article through the indy100 rankings.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A \u2018gravity anomaly\u2019 may sound dramatic, but as defined by EBSCO, they pertain to \u201cdeviations in the expected…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":227725,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[16452,64,63,129,3189,131,337,128,285],"class_list":{"0":"post-227724","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-space","8":"tag-atlantic-ocean","9":"tag-au","10":"tag-australia","11":"tag-earth","12":"tag-gravity","13":"tag-nasa","14":"tag-research","15":"tag-science","16":"tag-space"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/227724","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=227724"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/227724\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/227725"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=227724"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=227724"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=227724"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}