A new study, using convection models, shows that Earth’s collision with the protoplanet Theia some 4.5 billion years ago, might’ve triggered early subduction in Earth’s crust.

Thus, the fragments of Theia now found in Earth close a many-centuries-long puzzle over the origin of our moon and give voice to our unique geological history.

In this illustration, parts of the ancient planet Theia sink and accumulate at the bottom of the Earth’s mantle. This forms two ‘blobs’ called large low-velocity provinces (LLVPs) deep ...

Theia is a hypothetical Mars-sized planet that hit Earth around 4.5 billion years ago, throwing off enough rock to form the Moon. It has been suggested that the blobs are in fact pieces of Theia ...

More information: Yu Zhang et al, Superionic iron hydride shapes ultralow-velocity zones at Earth's core–mantle boundary, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (2024).

Earth's largest gold reserves are not kept inside Fort Knox, the United States Bullion Depository. In fact, they are hidden much deeper in the ground than one would expect. More than 99.999% of ...

In this cross-journal Collection, we focus on the contributions from geophysics and geochemistry that advance understanding of Earth’s core, the core mantle boundary, and the nature of ultra-low ...