This year has been a roller-coaster ride for humans. Coronavirus has taken the world by storm and while the mainstream media has given most of its coverage to the disease, scientists were busy uncovering some of the Earth’s most well-kept secrets.
They found hidden rivers, chunks of lost continents and remnants of ancient rainforests, and they delved into the planet’s ancient history using cutting-edge technologies.
Here are 10 of the geological discoveries of our world in 2020:
Historic supereruption at Yellowstone
The Yellowstone hotspot lurks beneath the US national park’s geysers and hot springs, and about 9 million years ago, the volcano exploded in two historic super-eruptions, scientists found.
After analysing ancient volcanic rock tracts and volcanic deposits in the region, scientists uncovered evidence of two previously unknown eruptions, which they named the McMullen Creek super-eruption and the Grey’s Landing super-eruption.
The Grey’s Landing eruption shattered records as the largest eruption of the Yellowstone hotspot ever detected; about 8.72 million years ago, the eruption covered roughly 8,900 square miles (23,000 square kilometers) of what is now southern Idaho and northern Nevada with volcanic debris.
Monstrous blobs
Continent-size blobs of rock sit at the boundary of Earth’s solid mantle and liquid outer core, and now, scientists think they might be bigger than we ever imagined. By previous estimates, the two largest blobs would measure 100 times taller than Mount Everest if pulled to the planet’s surface. But after studying decades of seismic data from earthquakes, scientists now estimate that the big blob beneath the Pacific Ocean may actually be far more monstrous. For instance, one newfound structure along the edge of the blob measured more than 620 miles (1,000 kilometers) across.
Lost islands in the North Sea
Roughly 8,000 years ago, a tsunami struck a plain between Great Britain and the Netherlands, submerging most of the region. But research suggests that some islands may have withstood the tsunami, providing a home to Stone Age humans for thousands of years. Scientists learned the lost islands had survived the tsunami only after collecting sediment from the seafloor near the eastern English estuary of the River Ouse.
Earth’s core is a billion years old
The Earth’s solid inner core — a 1,500-mile-wide (2,442 kms) ball of iron — likely formed about 1 billion to 1.3 billion years ago, scientists estimate. By recreating the conditions found in the core on a teeny, tiny scale, the team was able to calculate how long it would take for a blob of molten iron to build up to the core’s current size. The time window of roughly 1 billion years lines up nicely with historic fluctuations in the planet’s magnetic field, which grew significantly stronger between 1 billion and 1.5 billion years ago.
Piece of a lost continent found under Canada
About 150 million years ago, a now-lost continent broke up into enormous fragments — and one big chunk was recently discovered lurking under Canada. Scientists made the discovery while studying a type of diamond-bearing volcanic rock called kimberlite, which had been collected from nearly 250 miles (400 km) beneath Baffin Island in northern Canada.
Underwater rivers found near Australia
This year, scientists discovered massive rivers of cold, salty water that flow from the Australian coast out into the deep ocean. The rivers, which researchers found using autonomous underwater vehicles, form when shallow waters near the coast lose heat during the winter.
Ancient rainforest found under Antarctic ice
Antarctica might be the last place you’d expect to find remnants of an ancient rainforest, but that’s exactly what scientists found under the western side of the continent. The forest’s remains were discovered in a sediment core drilled from a seabed near Pine Island Glacier.
Ancient seabed buried 400 miles beneath China
A seabed that once lined the bottom of the Pacific Ocean was found buried hundreds of miles beneath China, where it continues to descend toward the Earth’s mantle transition zone. Scientists had never detected a subduction event so deep beneath the planet surface, at depths ranging between 254 to 410 miles (410 to 660 km) underground.
Lost tectonic plate gets resurrected?
Scientists digitally reconstructed a tectonic plate and showed that its movement likely gave rise to an arc of volcanoes in the Pacific Ocean some 60 million years ago.
Towering coral structure bigger than Empire State Building
The first detached coral reef discovered in more than 100 years stands taller than the Empire State Building. Measuring 1,640 feet (500 meters) high from base to tip, the tower of coral stands freely near the rest of the Great Barrier Reef off the coast of Australia.
