PNAS geologists discover “underground passage” linking Galapagos to Panama
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Geologists of the US National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) have found an answer to the question of why rocks were found in Panama despite the fact that there is no intense volcanic activity on the territory, writes Expresso.
For several decades, scientists could not explain the discovery of the remains of volcanic activity in Panama. It turned out that these rocks were carried away by the “mantle wind” through a kind of “underground passage” from the Galapagos Islands. The latter are located at a distance of more than 1609 kilometers from Panama. The group of islands in the east of the equatorial Pacific Ocean is located 972 kilometers west of Ecuador.
Experts analyzed the composition of the stone recovered in Panama. It was almost identical to the specimens from the Galapagos Islands. Geologists concluded that the Galapagos mantle plume “blew” material through a shallow “window” about eight million years ago on the Panama Plate.
This discovery could change the idea of scientists about the geological processes occurring under the surface of the Earth. They now know that hotspots like those formed by the Galapagos Islands and Hawaii are not fixed.
Earlier, geologists said that Zeeland, the eighth continent of the Earth, is located under the waters of the Pacific Ocean in its southwestern part.
