Overview
- Researchers model the two large low‑shear‑velocity provinces beneath Africa and the Pacific as chemically distinct mantle reservoirs that slow seismic waves.
- The simulations propose that, as the young core cooled, lighter components crystallized and were squeezed across the core–mantle boundary into an early magma ocean.
- The added material shifts mantle chemistry toward silicate phases consistent with seismic inferences and away from the high‑ferropericlase layering predicted by simple magma‑ocean cooling.
- The modeled reservoirs and associated ultra‑low‑velocity zones can persist over 4.5 billion years and be reorganized by convection into the pile‑like structures imaged today.
- The peer‑reviewed work, led by Yoshinori Miyazaki of Rutgers and published in Nature Geoscience, outlines tests for verification and notes possible links to hotspots, plate behavior, and regional magnetic anomalies as hypotheses.