When you purchase through links on our site , we may earn an affiliate commission . Here ’s how it works .
A long - lost oceanic plate is dive deep into the mantlepiece , drag down the gall above , researchers say . However , the dental plate is also tearing apart below the Zagros Mountains in Iraq as it plunges downward , aim some of the load off the overlying crust .
This tearing process has likely already occurred on the west side of the mountain range , where Iraq ’s Kurdistan region butt up against Turkey , new enquiry finds . The tear is now heading toward northwest Iran .
A view of the Zagros mountains in Iran, where an oceanic plate is tearing apart.
These moral force are n’t right away obvious at the control surface , but they divulge how the mantle and cheekiness ferment together to shape Earth ’s topography , the investigator suppose in the new report , published Nov. 25 , 2024 in the journalSolid Earth .
The ocean denture was once the seafloor of Neotethys — an ocean that form when the supercontinent Pangaea soften up into a northern continent , Laurasia , and a southerly continent , Gondwanaabout 195 million years ago . Though Neotethys close up more than 20 million class ago , the pelagic crust that used to underpin it is still strike the Zagros mountain part , the new bailiwick found .
" This plate is pulling the area downwardly from below , " subject area authorRenas Koshnaw , a researcher in geology at Göttingen University in Germany , said in astatement .
As Neotethys closed up , the oceanic crust went under the Eurasian continent . The continental component of the Arabian plate , which corroborate advanced - day Iraq and Saudi Arabia , was scuff behind , resulting in a collision with Eurasia . This collision produce mountains , which pressed down on the crust around them , creating a depression .
These mess eroded into this impression over millions of years , their sediments forming the Mesopotamian plain where the Tigris and Euphrates river flow .
– A story of Earth ’s supercontinents
– Zealandia , Earth ’s concealed continent , was torn from supercontinent Gondwana in outpouring of fire 100 million years ago
– Is Africa splitting in two ?
Koshnaw and his colleagues saw that on the southeasterly side of this planer , there is an remarkably dense bed of sediments , 1.9 to 2.5 mile ( 3 to 4 kilometer ) mysterious . They mapped the country and used computer modeling to recover that the free weight of the mountains alone could not calculate for such a deep divot . alternatively , they found that this region is being dragged down by the stiff of the Neotethys pelagic plate , which is still dunk into the cape . But the plate is also being tear apart as it descends .
" Towards Turkey , the deposit - filled depression becomes much shallower , suggesting that the slab has broken off in this area , relieving the downward pull force , " Koshnaw said .
read these dynamic can help inform the lookup for natural resource such as iron , inorganic phosphate and copper , which form in aqueous rocks , the researcher say . Faults formed in thecollision between the Arabian and Eurasian platesalso give off big , lethal earthquakes .
Test your knowledge of Earth’s layers
You must confirm your public display name before commenting
Please logout and then login again , you will then be prompted to enter your show name .
