英语科普小知识 地幔运动同样面临拥堵状况.docVIP

Earth is dynamic. What we perceive as solid ground beneath our feet, is in reality constantly changing. In the space of a year Africa and America are drifting apart at the back of the Middle Atlantic for some centimeters while the floor of the Pacific Ocean is subducted underneath the South American Continent. In 100 million years time Africa will be pulled apart and North Australia will be at the equator, says Prof. Dr. Falko Langenhorst from the Friedrich Schiller University Jena (Germany). Plate tectonics is leading to a permanent renewal of the ocean floors, the mineralogist explains. The gaps between the drifting slabs are being filled up by rising melt, solidifying to new oceanic crust. In other regions the slabs dive into the deep interior of Earth and mix with the surrounding Earths mantle. Earth is the only planet in our solar system, conducting such a facelift on a regular basis. But the continuous up and down on Earths crust doesnt run smoothly everywhere. Seismic measurements show that in some mantle regions, where one slab is subducted underneath another one, the movementstagnates（停滞）, as soon as the rocks have reached a certain depth, says Prof. Langenhorst. The causes of the congestion of the subducted plate are still unknown. In the current issue of Nature Geoscience, Prof. Langenhorst and earth scientists of Bayreuth University now explain the phenomenon for the first time. ? According to this, the rocks of the submerging ocean plate pond at a depth of 440 to 650 kilometers -- in the transition zone between the upper and the lower Earth mantle. The reason for that can be found in the slow?diffusion（扩散，传播）?and transformation of mineral components, mineralogist Langenhorst explains. On the basis of high pressure experiments the scientists were able to clarify things: under the given pressure and temperature in this depth, the exchange of elements between the main minerals of the subducted ocean plate --?pyroxene（辉石）?and?garnet（石榴石）?-- is slowed down t