Topic: Research News

Scientists have discovered a massive underwater canyon in the Atlantic Ocean. They found that it was created by tectonic forces and mantle activity.

The ocean floor is home to enormous features that surpass the size of the largest land canyons. One such feature is the King's Trough Complex, located about 1,000 kilometers off the coast of Portugal. This vast underwater structure stretches roughly 500 kilometers and includes a series of parallel trenches and deep basins. At its eastern edge is Peake Deep, one of the deepest locations in the Atlantic Ocean.

A team of international researchers led by the GEOMAR Helmholtz Centre for Ocean Research Kiel has uncovered new clues about what created this immense formation. Their findings appear in Geochemistry, Geophysics, Geosystems (G-Cubed), published by the American Geophysical Union (AGU).

The research indicates that between about 37 and 24 million years ago, a plate boundary separating Europe and Africa temporarily passed through this part of the North Atlantic. As the tectonic plates shifted, the crust in this region was pulled apart and fractured, opening progressively from east to west.

An important piece of the puzzle lies even deeper. Before the plate boundary moved into the area, the oceanic crust there had already become unusually thick and heated. This condition resulted from hot material rising upward from Earth's mantle. Known as a mantle plume, this steady column of molten rock originates far below the surface.

The team believes that this was an early offshoot of what is now the Azores mantle plume.

Implications

Scientists have discovered a massive underwater canyon in the Atlantic Ocean. They found that it was created by tectonic forces and mantle activity.