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GEODYNAMICS

Plate tectonics from crust to core

Nature Geoscience volume 13, pages 461–462 (2020)Cite this article

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Compositional signatures of subducted crust in the deep-mantle sources of ocean island volcanoes in the Atlantic Ocean but not the Pacific reveal that plate motions on Earth’s surface influence the characteristics of Earth’s deepest interior.

In the 1960s, plate-tectonic theory provided a connection between some of the most dramatic features of Earth’s surface: the mountains of the Himalaya, the volcanoes and large earthquakes around the Pacific, and the volcanic ridges found in the middle of most ocean basins. All these features result from the continual movement of rigid ‘plates’ across Earth’s surface. What was less clear was how far these plate movements penetrate into Earth’s interior. Writing in Nature Geoscience, Doucet and colleagues1 suggest that even the deepest portions of Earth’s rocky mantle are influenced by, and contribute to, the dynamics that drive plate tectonics at Earth’s surface.

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Fig. 1: Distribution of volcanism with respect to seismic structures in the deep mantle.

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  1. Earth and Planets Laboratory, Carnegie Institution for Science, Washington DC, USA

    Richard W. Carlson

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  1. Richard W. Carlson
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Correspondence to Richard W. Carlson.

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Carlson, R.W. Plate tectonics from crust to core. Nat. Geosci. 13, 461–462 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41561-020-0605-2

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