{"id":274151,"date":"2026-02-04T20:08:17","date_gmt":"2026-02-04T20:08:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/274151\/"},"modified":"2026-02-04T20:08:17","modified_gmt":"2026-02-04T20:08:17","slug":"enormous-pair-of-deep-earth-hot-blobs-shape-earths-magnetic-field-scientists-say","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/274151\/","title":{"rendered":"Enormous Pair of Deep-Earth Hot ‘Blobs’ Shape Earth\u2019s Magnetic Field, Scientists Say"},"content":{"rendered":"

For all we\u2019ve learned about places far away in outer space, we may have barely scratched the surface of the places lying deep within Earth. As a result, there\u2019s a lot of information we seem to be missing out on\u2014for example, the influence of two huge rock blobs on Earth\u2019s magnetic field.<\/p>\n

In a Nature Geoscience<\/a> paper published yesterday, researchers announced that they\u2019ve found evidence of two enormous blobs of solid, superheated material that appear to have shaped Earth\u2019s magnetic field for millions of years. These big lower-mantle basal structures\u2014blobs for short\u2014lie at the base of Earth\u2019s mantle, roughly 1,864 miles (3,000 kilometers) beneath Africa and the Pacific Ocean, study lead author Andrew Biggin explained in a commentary about the paper for The Conversation<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\"EarthA diagram showing the Earth\u2019s internal structure. Credit: USGS <\/p>\n

The continent-sized blobs are much hotter than the lower mantle, creating a significant temperature gradient in the rocky mantle. According to Biggin, a geologist at the University of Liverpool in the United Kingdom, this sharp contrast helps sustain the flow of Earth\u2019s fluid outer core, referred to as the geodynamo<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cWithout this massive internal heat transfer from core to mantle and ultimately through the crust to the surface,\u201d Biggin wrote, \u201cEarth would be like our nearest neighbors Mars and Venus: magnetically dead.\u201d<\/p>\n

The history of Earth\u2019s magnetism <\/p>\n

Earth\u2019s magnetic field runs on electric currents generated by the motion of extremely hot iron and nickel\u2014the geodynamo. To study historical trends in Earth\u2019s magnetism, researchers look to the magnetic records<\/a> contained in rocks and other natural materials. For instance, igneous rocks borne of cooled magma acquire a permanent magnetism that captures the direction of Earth\u2019s magnetic field at the time and place of cooling.<\/p>\n

While studying such rocks, Biggin and his colleagues noticed distinct patterns in the magnetic records of rocks up to 250 million years old. Specifically, the magnetic directions displayed strong correlations with the longitude and latitude of where the rocks presumably formed.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, geologists and seismologists in recent decades had increasingly focused on blobs, which appear to be closely related<\/a> to volcanic eruptions. But Biggin\u2019s team wondered whether the different puzzle pieces\u2014magnetic records in volcanic rocks or blobs and volcanic eruptions\u2014could help explain the role of blobs in Earth\u2019s magnetic field.<\/p>\n

Exploring Earth, bottom-side-up <\/p>\n

For the new research, the team developed advanced simulations that mapped out Earth\u2019s magnetic field based on different heat profiles for the core, mantle, and blob. After several trials, the map that most accurately depicted Earth\u2019s actual magnetic field represented the model that included strong variations in heat transfers\u2014something that would be the case if the blobs were actively churning between the outer core and the lower mantle.<\/p>\n

What\u2019s more, the team found that the presence of blobs contributed to the overall stability of the magnetic field, with certain sections of the field remaining stagnant for hundreds of millions of years.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat seems to be happening is that the two hot blobs are insulating the liquid metal beneath them, preventing heat loss that would otherwise cause the fluid to thermally contract and sink down into the core,\u201d Biggin explained.<\/p>\n

That said, blobs are still a general enigma for scientists; researchers have yet to properly characterize their true origin and identity. If the simulations are correct, however, blobs appear to be a big part of ensuring the Earth keeps things together\u2014so \u201cwe have much to thank them for,\u201d Biggin noted.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"For all we\u2019ve learned about places far away in outer space, we may have barely scratched the surface…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":274152,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[19554,85,46,30986,141],"class_list":{"0":"post-274151","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-science","8":"tag-geology","9":"tag-il","10":"tag-israel","11":"tag-magnetic-field","12":"tag-science"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/274151","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=274151"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/274151\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/274152"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=274151"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=274151"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=274151"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}