LONDON: Scientists from Cardiff University are undertaking a mission to the mid-Atlantic to investigate what they describe as a huge "open wound" on the Earth's surface.
The scientists believe that a large area covering thousands of square kilometers in the center of Atlantic, where the Earth's crust is located, is missing and the deep interior of the planet, normally covered by the crust, which is several kilometers thick, is exposed on the seafloor.
Dr Chris MacLeod, a marine geologist at the School of Earth, Ocean and Planetary Sciences at the Cardiff University, who is part of the team of researchers, says the crust appears to be completely missing. This area is located midway between the Cape Verde Islands and the Caribbean, on the Mid-Atlantic Ridge, he said.
What confounds the scientists team are questions like whether the crust was there previously and if yes, what led to its disappearance and why it is not getting repaired as usual.
The scientists will travel to the area and survey it up to five kilometers under the surface from a research vessel RRS James Cook. They will use sonars to capture the seafloor and then take rock cores using a robotic seabed drill. MacLeod is hopeful that the samples will throw light into the working of the deep interiors of the Earth.
MacLeod says the absence of the crust is like an "open wound on the surface of the Earth."
He describes the usual process: The plates are pulled apart and to fill the gap the mantle underneath rises up. As it comes up it starts to melt. That forms the magma. However, something seems to have gone awry in this case. "The crust does not seem to be repairing itself," he said.
Instead a rock called serpentinite has been formed as a result of the mantle's exposure to seawater, says MacLeod.
