Wait What?! Earth's Crust Is Dripping Into the Mantle, Causing Weird Effects

Hello and welcome! My name is Anton and in this video, we will talk about dripping of Earth's crust into planet Earth that turns out to be pretty influential
Links:
#earth #geology #drip

0:00 New geological process just discovered - lithospheric drip
0:50 Pitch drop experiment to help you understand
2:10 Earth's crust is similar - it drips
2:55 First discovery on Earth
4:10 Second location in Turkey but a bit different
5:05 How this probably works
5:40 How this was discovered
6:35 Proving this with an experiment
7:20 Additional discoveries and confirmations
8:10 Implications and what this means for other planets

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Credit:
DeCelles, et al.; Julia Andersen et al.

Licenses used:

[CaptScrotes]

I love that this is simultaneously a huge and significant step in our understanding of our world and other worlds in our universe, and yet has absolutely zero impact on my day to day life.

[George-rkts]

If I saw this title from anyone else, I would not have watched it. But this is from a most wonderful person who has earned both my respect and my trust.

Stay wonderful, Anton.

[aukword]

Decades ago I saw a TV documentary about how the Mongolian region went from being a low lying basin to a high altitude plateau in a geological eye blink. A massive drip was posited as the likelyest cause.

[daroccot]

As a retired geologist i will definitely look at these papers. You only mentioned once in the video the key concept. Density. Of the top of my head, were these ophiolitic complexes or very mafic regions. They would need to be denser than the mantle they were to descend into which is pretty dense in comparison to the crust which is typically less dense. Unless of course there were a hot pool of trapped felsic material floating atop the mantle…. Ah guess i will look into the papers….

[seantiz]

Fun fact, the 100 year pitch experiment is where the phrase “wait for it” originated.

[GeologyHub]

This is also happening beneath SW Utah, likely being responsible for the Markagunt and Uinkaret volcanoes at a minimum.

[SirCharles]

Mind blown again! We are just mayflies when looking at geologic time!

[chipgarner]

You keep finding the best stuff in very different fields, thank you Anton!

[Jr-qols]

Videos like this are what YouTube and the internet are for.

[hoogmonster]

I have been conducting tests on viscous drip using cheese in my toasted sandwich maker. It's a cost effective analogue, with crusts and major molten cheese formations under high temperature and pressure just dripping away...

[coweatsman]

Watching pitch drip. Makes watching paint dry or grass grow sound swift and exciting action holding spectators spell bound.

[quakekatut]

Thanks for a deeper look at lithospheric drip or drip subduction. I first heard of this late last year and have been interested in this process. Studies point to drip subduction happening during the Archean Eon, playing a role in accretionary events. Just when we think we're figuring out plate tectonics, a long lost chapter on subduction suddenly forces us to re-examine earth processes! Always learning!

[jerryharder]

In 1980 Walter T Brown in his book "In The Beginning Compelling Evidence" talks about the properties of magma under various pressures. Magma, produced by shearing friction in the mantle at a depth less than 220 miles, the crossover depth, can expand and become bouyant and rise through more shearing friction. Likewise magma produced by shearing deeper than 220miles, the crossover pressure, will compress to half it's volume so the same volume will be twice as heavy and with gravity cause it to migrate downward toward the outer core The expanding magma produces earthquakes as it makes it's way upward to larger pockets or magma chambers. Anton, These two ideas trying to explain geologic processes both sound the same to me!

[malcolmt]

This weird dripping is a possible explanation for these strange relatively flat areas in the middle of a mountain range, such as the Tibetan Plateau.

[RobertBrown-ir]

Fascinating as always Anton -- you are a wonderful educator in the sciences

[whaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa]

For the crust to "drip", either the material is denser than the mantle below or the mantle is down welling there and dragging (not dripping) the crust down with it - essentially the opposite of a mantle "hot spot". The researchers' model attributes the drip to a high density ophiolite attached to the crust during compressional tectonics, which then initiates the drip and then secondary drip through the initial drips downwelling.
The problem with this model is that it does not encompass the entire mantle convention system. Mantle convection is initiated from the core outward, not from the crust down. I'm not saying they are wrong, just incomplete. When the mantle upwells it must downwell elsewhere, and the thick crust would be the natural place for it to do so. Downwelling underneath the thickened crust was probably initiated first and pulled the relatively cool ophilite down with it which then cools the mantle it sinks into and reinforces a convection current.

[Flesh_Wizard]

It's confirmed. Earth does indeed have drip😎😎😎

[drbuckley]

Would love more earth science videos, Anton. Thanks!

[babyoda]

I can always count on my boy to bring the dopest info thank you Anton 😊

[mjinba]

Couple'a thoughts -

A drip from a water faucet (or the pitch experiment) has a singular, round point of separation, while the crust's dive towards the mantle wouldn't be round, it'd be a stretch of lateral material. So unless the piece of crust breaking free were to have been reorganized to a point, the corresponding surface reaction wouldn't be a circular depression or a circular rebound uplift, it'd be lateral groove or a length of uplift.

Also, the melted crust must still be heavier than the surrounding magma, and still chemically cohesive enough to maintain its own integrity rather than combining with surrounding magma, at least for a time, in order for a "drip" to occur.