Overview

• The new Geology paper uses seismic tomography and geodynamic simulations to trace the Northern Appalachian Anomaly to rifting between Greenland and North America 90–80 million years ago.
• The anomaly extends roughly 350 kilometers across and lies about 200 kilometers beneath the Appalachian Mountains in New England.
• Researchers validate a “mantle wave” mechanism in which convective drips transport hot mantle material inland at approximately 20 kilometers per million years.
• A corresponding thermal anomaly beneath north-central Greenland is identified as the mirror-image counterpart formed on the opposite flank of the Labrador Sea rift.
• Geodynamic models project the anomaly’s continued southwestward migration will pass under the New York region within the next 10 to 15 million years.