The secrets of the evolutionary history of our planet are kept deep inside the Earth


The soil materials that are located in extreme conditions deep in the Earth are able to decipher the history of the evolution of our planet. So according to the astrophysicists of the National Accelerator Laboratory SLAC. A new technique developed by scientists, allows to obtain new information about the location of atoms of liquid silicates in impossible, sometimes fantastic conditions, which are called extreme.

But their study opens the veil of secrets about the evolutionary history of the planet. In the Earth at a depth of about three thousand kilometers is a special magmatic region. It is located between the silicate-based solid mantle, and between the molten core.

Its astrophysicists are conventionally called the “relic of the past”, since it was formed 4.5 billion years ago, when the planet was formed from a molten state. In this region of the Earth, temperatures and loads are extreme and these factors make it difficult to study the planet. But it contains clues about the mysterious history of the origin of our world. Arianna Gleeson is one of the researchers involved in the development of this topic.

She believes that scientists have the opportunity to put together all the data on how the Earth was formed and due to which it was able to transform from molten to the form that it currently has. For this, it is important to study the depths of the planet, where certain areas still have the same conditions as they were when creating the Earth.

For example, liquid silicates are still present at the boundary of the core and mantle. Understanding their distribution will help clarify the history of evolution and other rocky planets. Some molten states of silicates are already known to scientists. They are extremely difficult to study, but modern technology can create computer models of the bowels of the planet to show which processes formed the Earth.

For example, using a Linac Coacher Light Source free electron x-ray laser, researchers were able to direct a shock wave through a silicate sample using a carefully tuned optical laser. The simulation created a level of pressure simulating the pressure in the mantle of the planet. It is 10 times higher than the pressure level that was previously achieved in scientific experiments using liquid silicates.

Comparing the results with the results of previous experiments, the researchers said that it was important for them to collect different methods for them to get similar results. This makes it possible to find a single structure that reveals the secrets of the evolution of the Earth.