{"id":346075,"date":"2025-12-15T05:04:11","date_gmt":"2025-12-15T05:04:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/346075\/"},"modified":"2025-12-15T05:04:11","modified_gmt":"2025-12-15T05:04:11","slug":"something-quite-unusual-was-going-on-under-the-earths-surface-eighteen-years-ago-twistedsifter","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/346075\/","title":{"rendered":"Something Quite Unusual Was Going On Under The Earth\u2019s Surface Eighteen Years Ago \u00bb TwistedSifter"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>\t\t\t\t\t\t<img fetchpriority=\"high\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-487089\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-487089\" src=\"https:\/\/twistedsifter.com\/wp-content\/plugins\/lazy-load-0.7\/images\/1x1.trans.gif\" alt=\"earth's inside mantle crust\" width=\"800\" height=\"158\" title=\"Something Quite Unusual Was Going On Under The Earths Surface Eighteen Years Ago\" data-lazy-src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/EarthsMantle.jpg\"\/><\/p>\n<p id=\"caption-attachment-487089\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Shutterstock<\/p>\n<p>The year was 2007. You might have had the first iPhone in your hands, or you could have been listening to \u2018The Black Parade\u2019 \u2013 or indeed seeing it performed live across the globe.<\/p>\n<p>Perhaps you were there to see the Burj Khalifa completed, or maybe you were stuffing popcorn into your mouth while watching Spiderman 3.<\/p>\n<p>But what you almost certainly weren\u2019t doing at the time, was taking detailed measurements of the Earth\u2019s mantle. Why would you have been?<\/p>\n<p>Fortunately for science though, two NASA satellites \u2013 designed to monitor our planet\u2019s sea levels \u2013 was observing this data. And this is why we know, eighteen years down the line, that while you were singing along with Gerard Way, something unusual was going on deep underground.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-637617\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-637617\" src=\"https:\/\/twistedsifter.com\/wp-content\/plugins\/lazy-load-0.7\/images\/1x1.trans.gif\" alt=\"The Burj Khalifa on the Dubai night skyline\" width=\"800\" height=\"200\" title=\"Something Quite Unusual Was Going On Under The Earths Surface Eighteen Years Ago\" data-lazy-src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/Burj-Khalifa.jpg\"\/><\/p>\n<p id=\"caption-attachment-637617\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Pexels<\/p>\n<p>We know this now thanks to geophysicists from Paris City University, whose recent <a href=\"https:\/\/agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com\/doi\/10.1029\/2025GL116408\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\">paper<\/a> \u2013 which was published in the journal\u00a0Geophysical Research Letters\u00a0\u2013 unpicked data from NASA\u2019s Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment (GRACE) satellites.<\/p>\n<p>And what they discovered was that between 2006 and 2008, there were minute shifts in the Earth\u2019s gravitational field.<\/p>\n<p>This showed as a \u2018geomagnetic jerk\u2019 off the Atlantic coast of Africa in 2007.<\/p>\n<p>This might not seem like much on the surface (literally) but what it points to is some quite significant movement deep underground, between the core and the mantle.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-457203\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-457203\" src=\"https:\/\/twistedsifter.com\/wp-content\/plugins\/lazy-load-0.7\/images\/1x1.trans.gif\" alt=\"The Earth from space\" width=\"800\" height=\"300\" title=\"Something Quite Unusual Was Going On Under The Earths Surface Eighteen Years Ago\" data-lazy-src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/Earth.jpg\"\/><\/p>\n<p id=\"caption-attachment-457203\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">NASA<\/p>\n<p>This \u2018jerk\u2019 was not something that could be explained by the GRACE data, which led the researchers to hypothesise the cause.<\/p>\n<p>Their theory? That a mineral known as perovskite, which lies toward the bottom the the Earth\u2019s mantle, could have undergone some sort of structural change, which would have led to changes to nearby rocks too.<\/p>\n<p>While they might be deep, these shifts would have undoubtedly have had repercussions on the Earth\u2019s surface, as well as potentially affecting the flow of liquid rock in the Earth\u2019s core, thus having perceptible effects on the GRACE data.<\/p>\n<p>As for the team, their investigations to prove their theory go on, with more NASA data informing their progress.<\/p>\n<p>If you found that story interesting, learn more about <a href=\"https:\/\/twistedsifter.com\/2024\/01\/science-explains-why-people-often-wake-up-around-3am-and-keep-doing-it-for-life\/?utm_source=IN-ARTICLE&amp;utm_medium=IN-ARTICLE&amp;utm_campaign=IN-ARTICLE\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\">why people often wake up around 3 AM and keep doing it for life.<\/a><\/p>\n<p>\n\t\tCategories: <a href=\"https:\/\/twistedsifter.com\/category\/scitech\/\" rel=\"category tag nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">SCI\/TECH<\/a>\t\t<br \/>Tags:  \u00b7 <a href=\"https:\/\/twistedsifter.com\/tag\/2007\/\" rel=\"tag nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">2007<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/twistedsifter.com\/tag\/earths-core\/\" rel=\"tag nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">earth&#8217;s core<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/twistedsifter.com\/tag\/earths-mantle\/\" rel=\"tag nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">earth&#8217;s mantle<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/twistedsifter.com\/tag\/geology\/\" rel=\"tag nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">geology<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/twistedsifter.com\/tag\/geomagnetic-jerk\/\" rel=\"tag nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">geomagnetic jerk<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/twistedsifter.com\/tag\/geophysics\/\" rel=\"tag nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">geophysics<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/twistedsifter.com\/tag\/grace\/\" rel=\"tag nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">GRACE<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/twistedsifter.com\/tag\/nasa\/\" rel=\"tag nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">NASA<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/twistedsifter.com\/tag\/perovskite\/\" rel=\"tag nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">perovskite<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/twistedsifter.com\/tag\/science\/\" rel=\"tag nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">science<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/twistedsifter.com\/tag\/single-topic\/\" rel=\"tag nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">single topic<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/twistedsifter.com\/tag\/top\/\" rel=\"tag nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">top<\/a>\t<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Shutterstock The year was 2007. You might have had the first iPhone in your hands, or you could&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":346076,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[150836,49,48,14089,84904,10753,150837,11422,42092,307,93245,66,14091,1060],"class_list":{"0":"post-346075","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-science","8":"tag-150836","9":"tag-ca","10":"tag-canada","11":"tag-earths-core","12":"tag-earths-mantle","13":"tag-geology","14":"tag-geomagnetic-jerk","15":"tag-geophysics","16":"tag-grace","17":"tag-nasa","18":"tag-perovskite","19":"tag-science","20":"tag-single-topic","21":"tag-top"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/346075","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=346075"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/346075\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/346076"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=346075"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=346075"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=346075"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}