Yes, thalassophobia, or the fear of deep, dark water, has always existed, but we’re here to bring you your newest terror—what lies beneath our feet. According to BBC, in the interior of our planet there are mountains that top the charts, making Everest and other giants like it seem like a blip on the radar or a grain of sand on the beach. Discovered by a research team, the scientists who made the shocking find are baffled as to how these mountains ended up buried under the Earth in the first place.
Called ultra-low-velocity zones (ULVZs), these huge subterranean mountain ranges can be found at the boundary between the core and the mantle. For those of us who weren’t paying attention or didn’t remember things from science class taken all the way back in high school, the zone in question is somewhere around 1,800 miles deep. This is where things get really interesting.
Some of the mountains are “4.5 times the height of Everest,” which might make you wonder how we missed them for so long. The answer is that they were essentially hidden from researchers until earthquakes and atomic explosions collected enough data for researchers to notice. To give you an idea of how big some of these giants are, Mount Everest is about 5.5 miles tall, which means the underground mountains are over 24 miles high.
So where did these underground mountains come from? Scientists now believe that these ancient formations were created when oceanic crust was forced into the Earth’s interior. Even more likely, the longer scientists do their work, the more they will discover. Mountains are just the beginning of this, with researchers already encountering what they call “spots,” which are scientifically known as large low-shear-rate provinces.
Revealing just how far one has to travel to come across evidence of these subterranean mountains, University of Alabama geologist Samantha Hansen says she led an exploratory study in Antarctica that dives into the seismic activity happening underground. According to Hansen, this is the best place to get a good sense of what lies beneath, as with its southernmost location, patches and other extras like them have long since fallen or shifted, meaning it’s a clear mountain sight for explorers. While this may be the best place to conduct research, Hansen reveals that the chances are high that other peaks like these can be found anywhere on Earth.
You know we love a good advance in science, which means that even if it’s terrifying, the news of huge mountains deep beneath the Earth is an exciting find. While it may add to our list of fears of the unknown world(s) both above and below us, it is humbling to realize how much of our own planet we still have yet to discover. We will absolutely accept any news surrounding the mysteries in the earth’s crust as opposed to the daily advances in artificial intelligence that will undoubtedly come back to haunt us.