A new study revealed the critical situation that an area of the Earth would be going through. It is a breakup into two equal parts of the planet that would have great consequences hitherto unknown.
This is detailed in a research titled ‘Tearing and delamination of the Indian lithospheric mantle during flat plate subduction’ presented at the American Geophysical Union.
In this sense, the study warns that the plates tectonic structures of India and Eurasia, which have the same density, would be at risk of colliding with each other and thus causing one of them to fracture.
“This would be the case of the Indian region, which would see fragmentation in the deepest part. Unlike the usual breaks that are usually vertical, this failure occurred across the width”says the report.
Specifically, this risk would be originating from the Himalayan Mountain Range in Tibet. Thus, the study shows that there are two possible scenarios for what would be happening. On the one hand, the Indian plate would be sliding over the Eurasian plate or only its surface would be deforming at the same time that its deepest part is sinking into the Earth’s mantle.
Even the lowest section of the Tibetan Plateau could be sinking at 33 kilometers deep.
This new discovery could be leading to a considerable increase in earthquakes due to an excessive movement of the tectonic plates.
“We were not aware that continents could behave in this way and that has fundamental implications for those who study the solid earth” noted Douwe van Hinsbergen, a geodynamicist at Utrecht University.
