Archive for March 8th, 2014

Earth’s mantle plasticity explained: Missing mechanism for deforming olivine-rich rocks

Earth’s mantle is a solid layer that undergoes slow, continuous convective motion. But how do these rocks deform, thus making such motion possible, given that minerals such as olivine (the main constituent of the upper mantle) do not exhibit enough defects in their crystal lattice to explain the deformations observed in nature? A team led […]