- India is changing dramatically beneath the Earth’s surface, as a new study reveals that the India plate may be splitting in two.
- Scientists claim that the change occurred horizontally and the plate split into separate layers.
- Simon Klemperer of Stanford University and his co-authors made their argument after examining helium levels found in Tibetan sources.
India is changing dramatically beneath the Earth’s surface, as a new study reveals that the India plate may be splitting in two.
You might imagine a tectonic plate splitting sideways into two pieces, but scientists argue that the change occurs horizontally, separating the plate into separate layers.
There is a lot of debate in the scientific world about what might be behind the formation of the Tibetan Plateau.
A new theory was put forward at the American Geophysical Union conference in December. This theory claimed that the Indian Plate was “separated into layers”. This means that the higher of the two parts of the plate will raise Tibet considerably, while the lower part will lower it towards the Earth’s mantle.
Simon Klemperer of Stanford University and his co-authors made their argument after examining helium levels found in Tibetan sources.
The research, which has not yet been peer-reviewed and is available in the ESS open archive, has discovered a pattern in which rare helium-3 originates from sources in northern Tibet, indicating that the mantle is close enough to the Earth’s surface. In Southern Tibet, helium-4, which is more abundant, is more prominent, suggesting that the plate has not yet split there.
Professor Van Hinsbergen from Utrecht University, who was not one of the study’s authors, said: “We didn’t know that continents could behave this way, and it’s quite fundamental for earth science.”
Compiled by: Serap Atabey
