Extreme chemical reactions could explain why Earth's middle layer has so much carbon.
The boundary zone between Earth's molten metal core and the mantle, its rocky middle layer, might be a diamond factory.
The findings also might help to explain strange structures deep in the core-mantle boundary where waves from earthquakes slow down dramatically. These regions, known as"ultra low velocity zones" are associated with strange mantle structures, including; they can be just a few miles across or many hundred. No one knows exactly what they are. Some scientists think they date back 4.5 billion years and are made of materials from the very ancient Earth.
When this happens, the hydrogen seems to push aside other light elements in the core, including, crucially, carbon. This carbon gets booted out of the core and into the mantle. At the high pressures present in the core-mantle boundary, carbon's most stable form is diamond.
If that's the case, many of the low-velocity zones in the mantle might be areas of water-driven melt, triggered by the churn of the oceanic plates deep into the planet.
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