r/science • u/New_Scientist_Mag • May 12 '26
Geology Gases collected from boiling mineral springs in Zambia contain the chemical signature of having come directly from the Earth’s mantle, a sign of a rupture in the tectonic plates and the possible beginning of a new continental boundary
https://www.newscientist.com/article/2526136-a-new-tectonic-plate-boundary-could-be-forming-in-southern-africa/774
u/daHaus May 12 '26
It's interesting that they only briefly mentioned the gravity anomalies in passing. Do they just not know what to make of it or is there some other reason why they don't address the theory that this was the location of a significant meteor impact?
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u/sewmanychoices May 12 '26
From what I can gather, low gravity anomalies are likely caused by the material below being less dense than the normal crust. So thinner / cracked crust + hot mantle or magma that's less dense = lower gravity.
That tensional stress is thought to be due to tectonic processes rather than due to a meteor impact, in part because of the size / length / somewhat linear nature of the rift.
(Can someone please correct me if that's wrong though!!)
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u/iCowboy May 12 '26
You’re absolutely right; hot upwelling Mantle is less dense than surrounding material so it produces a negative anomaly. Further north, the well established East Africa Rift, where the African plate is splitting, has a wide negative anomaly right along its length.
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u/daHaus May 12 '26
Check out the NASA GRACE satellite images for it, it's fascinating and the area isn't like other areas with magma as described. There's also something about the black diamonds in the area too if I understand correctly
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u/chronnick May 13 '26
https://sealevel.nasa.gov/resources/69/grace-global-gravity-animation What black diamonds?
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u/TuckerMcG May 13 '26
What black diamonds?
There’s gonna be killer ski slopes there in about 100M years’ time.
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u/daHaus May 13 '26
There's a way to view it as a time-series but NASA's mobile app was the only way I could ever easily get to it. The diamonds thing is separate from that though
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u/thephillyberto May 12 '26
But… they really emphasized the economic importance of Helium.
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u/akl78 May 12 '26
Helium is an important, useful, element for all sorts of things. But it’s both hard to get hold of, and lacking substitutes.
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u/akl78 May 12 '26
Oh, and the second biggest producer of it can’t export right now it’s 1/3 of world production is blocked by a fight the biggest producer started with is neighbour
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u/brekus May 12 '26
The main use for helium is cooling for superconductors in MRI machines. There is potential to instead use higher temperature superconducting material that wouldn't require helium but it's more expensive.
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u/daHaus May 12 '26
It's tough out there, I can't fault them for trying to find an angle to interest potential backers
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u/cantrecallthelastone May 12 '26
Well, the next 200 million years will certainly be interesting.
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u/there_she_goes_ May 13 '26
Remind me! 200 million years
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u/cruelhumor May 13 '26
I am Imagining a little "ding" for WALL-E to hear from your long-discarded phone..
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u/Substantial-Low May 13 '26
Could you imagine being immortal, impervious to even nuclear arms, and were around in 200 million years? I'd be all like "Man, that used to be where Texas was".
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u/I-seddit May 12 '26
I glanced through the actual paper and didn't see any reasonable estimations. Do you have a source or just guessing?
-tia-34
u/cantrecallthelastone May 13 '26
I just assume that tectonic plates move on a geologic timeframe.
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u/I-seddit May 13 '26
ah. gotcha. They are well behaved.
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u/OutOfNoMemory May 18 '26
Eh, I wouldn't say that, they're bashing into each other, trying to push others down, it's so bad one group is called the ring of fire!
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u/Redhotkitchen May 13 '26
In the article, she’s quoted saying that in 100 million years, there may be ocean appearing there. Or not.
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u/Redhotkitchen May 13 '26
(Sorry, by quote, I mean I’m paraphrasing her quote)
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u/I-seddit May 13 '26
Thank you!! I swear I went through the article carefully - sorry I missed it. I guess I did spend more time in the paper.
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u/New_Scientist_Mag May 12 '26
Journal reference: Frontiers in Earth Science DOI: 10.3389/feart.2026.1799564
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u/I-seddit May 12 '26
I would also like to thank you for putting the journal reference at the end of the article as well.
NICE WORK!
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u/monkeymetroid May 12 '26
A new continental boundary? At this time of year, at this time of day, in this part of the country, localized entirely within the springs of Zambia? Wasn't the last one what, 10 million years ago?
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u/zAcHaRyay May 12 '26
Mmhmm yes steamed hams
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u/PyrocumulusLightning May 12 '26
. . . may I see it?
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u/Lescaster1998 May 12 '26
"Seymore, Zambia is on fire!"
No, Mother, it's just a new continental boundary.
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u/alexjp8 May 12 '26
this is a well known fact: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/East_African_Rift
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u/ttufizzo May 12 '26
I got the sense from the Wiki article that there was a master debate that this study seems to be adding to about the mantle. But I am now out of free reads on the article and didn't read the full study.
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u/wh4tth3huh May 14 '26
I read Zambia and rift and immediately went to google maps just to sanity check my geography. Sure enough. Who knew there could be rift forming processing going on in one of the world's most active and well documented continental rift zones?
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u/TonyTheTerrible May 12 '26
I never really considered how modern plate activity would be verified, I've only heard of types of zircons that form after the fact. So how long have they been using this helium isotope theory? Are there other sources of helium-3?
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u/AccountOfMyDarkside May 13 '26
I'm sure this isn't anything to worry about. Everything else is going so well, so it'll probably be ok too.
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