Seismic mapping of North America has revealed that an ancient slab of crust buried beneath the Midwest is causing the crust ...

Beneath the American Midwest, on the continent of North America, the underside of Earth's crust is dripping ... zone between the deep mantle and the shallower lithosphere where we would expect ...

In the latter case, high temperatures and pressures lead to the reworking of the crust, affecting its ... of the lower continental lithosphere into the mantle, driven by the increased density ...

A new study led by researchers at the University of Texas at Austin has revealed that an ancient piece of Earth's crust ... mantle. This ancient slab may be weakening the overlying lithosphere ...

‘If rifting continues, new basaltic oceanic crust may ... that the lithosphere, a layer of the Earth’s mantle that ‘floats’ on the more fluid-like and weaker asthenosphere, could be ...

The processes led to the lithosphere, which consists of the Earth's crust and upper mantle, thinning and extending seaward. The NCC was specifically studied, but "the North American craton ...

A diagram showing how Earth's crust and upper mantle (together known as the lithosphere) could be dripping into the mantle due to the Farallon slab. (Image credit: Hua et al. Nature Geoscience (2025)) ...