An international research team led by Prof. Dr. Tomoo Katsura at the Bavarian Research Institute of Experimental Geochemistry and Geophysics, University of Bayreuth, has discovered why rocks in the Earth’s interior suddenly become more viscous at depths of 800 to 1,200 km. The cause of this change is the bridgmanite-enriched rocks that make up most of the Earth’s lower mantle below about 1,000 km. These rocks have a much larger grain size than the rocks above them, resulting in high viscosity. The new findings have been published in the journal Nature.
Click here for original story, Research team solves the riddle of the viscosity jump in the Earth’s lower mantle
Source: Phys.org