Geoscientist confirms millions of years old crustal drop beneath the Andes Mountains
Just as honey slowly drips from a spoon, parts of the rocky outermost layer of Earth’s shell have been continuously sinking into the more fluid layers of the planet’s mantle over millions of years. Known as lithospheric dripping – named for the fragmentation of the rocky material that makes up the Earth’s crust and upper mantle – this process results in significant deformation of the surface such as basins, crustal folds and irregular elevations. Although the process is a relatively new concept in the field of decades-old plate tectonics, several examples of lithospheric droplets around the world have been identified – the Central Anatolian Plateau in Turkey and the Great Basin in the western US, to name two. Now, a research team led by Earth scientists at the University of Toronto has confirmed that several areas of the central Andes Mountains in South America formed in a similar way. And they do so using materials available at hardware stores and art supply outlets. “We have confir