A vast expanse of the Indian Ocean is a staggering 100 meters lower than the global average sea level because of a major dip in Earth’s gravity.
There’s a massive “hole” in the Indian Ocean, researchers say—but it’s not the kind that could drain away all that water. Instead it’s a term geologists use to describe a spot where Earth’s gravity is lower than average. And a new study may have finally revealed its origins: it appears to be caused by plumes of molten rock rising from deep beneath Africa at the edges of the sinking remnants of an ancient ocean bed.
Local gravity measurements taken by ground-based sensors and satellites can be combined to show what the ocean’s surface would look like from those varying gravitational tugs alone, stripping out other influences such as winds and tides. This produces an exaggerated visualization of our planet’s gravitational high and low spots called the global geoid. One of the most famous models of this is known as the “Potsdam gravity potato” .
According to the study’s lead author Debanjan Pal, an IISc doctoral student, the IOGL was discovered in 1948 during a ship-based gravity survey by Dutch geophysicist Felix Andries Vening Meinesz. It has since been confirmed by other shipboard expeditions and by measurements from satellites. But scientists didn’t know why it was there.
The results, published in Geophysical Research Letters, indicate the IOGL is present because of a distinctive mantle structure, combined with an adjacent disturbance under Africa called a large low shear velocity province that is more commonly known as the “African blob.” “What we’re seeing is that hot, low-density material coming from this LLSVP underneath Africa is sitting underneath the Indian Ocean and creating this geoid low,” Ghosh says.
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