Unusual 'Blob' of Hot Rock Found Beneath New England

[Judi Lynn]

By Andrea Thompson, Live Science Contributor | December 14, 2017 01:23pm ET

The continental rock underlying the east coast of North America is pretty boring, tectonically speaking. The last dramatic geological goings-on there happened around 200 million years ago, and most change since then has been from glacial, wind and water erosion.

But a project that helped image the layers of rock below the continent with unprecedented clarity has helped reveal a small, unusual feature that seems to be a relatively new "blob" of hot, rising rock below part of the U.S. Northeast.

Exactly what caused this blob and whether other similar blob structures might lurk under other continents isn’t clear, said study co-author Vadim Levin, a Rutgers University geophysicist, but it raises plenty of interesting questions. The work on the blob was published online Nov. 29 in the journal Geology and presented Monday (Dec. 11) at the annual meeting of the American Geophysical Union in New Orleans. [In Photos: Ocean Hidden Beneath Earth's Surface]

Enter the EarthScope project, a National Science Foundation-funded endeavor that placed thousands of seismic detectors and other instruments across the United States to get a clearer snapshot of the various features — such as earthquake faults and different layers of ancient rock — that are lurking below the surface. Levin likened the EarthScope data to going from using a tiny flashlight in a dusty room to having an overhead light.

More:
https://www.livescience.com/61201-weird-hot-blob-under-new-england.html?utm_source=notification

[JDC]

1. Looks like it's under Hanover/Dartmouth?

[flotsam]

2. How soon can we get some geothermal goin'

I just got another propane bill and their killing me!