Stephanie Pappas is a contributing writer for Live Science, covering topics ranging from geoscience to archaeology to the human brain and behavior.
This odd process, called lithospheric dripping, has been proposed to occur under the Andes, in Central Asia, in the U.S. Pacific Northwest and along the west coast of Canada. Now, researchers have found that the Anatolian plateau in Turkey is undergoing a similar process.
Volcanic eruptions can spill lava on these planetary surfaces. But landforms can also be created when the lithosphere, which consists of the crust and the relatively brittle upper layer of the mantle, gets especially thick. Mountains create a lot of pressure on the lower lithosphere. In the high-pressure zones underneath the towering peaks, new mineralization can occur, Andersen told Live Science. Some of these minerals are denser than the mantle below.
Sign up for the Live Science daily newsletter nowGet the world’s most fascinating discoveries delivered straight to your inbox. Andersen and her team conducted a geophysical analysis of the basin's topography and set up a lab-bench experiment to mimic the formation of this large depression.
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