Yes, folks! The Blob really does exist and it is lurking beneath our very feet, well, at least the feet of those living in the great State of Nevada in the United States of America.
According to Live Science senior editor Jeanna Bryner, in an area of the Earth’s crust known as the lithosphere lay pockets of cold, near liquid-like, dripping material dubbed “lithospheric drip”. This material nicknamed The Blob are found in various parts of the globe and the most recent (and one of the largest deposits) have been discovered at the area of small mountain ranges in Nevada and Utah called The Great Basin.
“John West of Arizona State University (ASU) and his colleagues found evidence of a large cylindrical blob of cold material far below the surface of central Nevada,” stated Bryner in the Live Science piece.
When questioned about the find John West explained its function as “The Earth’s mantle, which lies below the thin outer crust we live on, consists of rock which deforms plastically on very long time scales due to the heat and pressure at depth. In any material which can flow (including the mantle), a heavy object will tend to sink through lighter material.”
West went on to say that The Blob-like consistency of the lithospheric drip was similar to “honey dripping off of a spoon. Dripping honey tends to lead with a large blob of honey, with a long tail of material following the initial blob.” The Blob (or lithospheric drip) has the same tendency.
This particular Blob is probably somewhere on the order of 20 million years in age and extends to as much as 60 miles in diameter, located approximately 300-plus miles below the Earth’s surface.
For full details on this latest scientific discovery read the article located in the May 24, 2009 edition of the science journal Nature Geoscience.
Leave a Reply