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North America is dripping from below, geoscientists discover

Researchers discovered cratonic dripping, where the North American continent sheds rock into the mantle, beneath the Midwest in 2025.
An ancient oceanic crust slab, the Farallon plate, subducting under North America caused this cratonic thinning.
The Farallon slab redirects mantle flows, shearing the craton's underside, causing giant drips extending 400 miles deep.
Junlin Hua said, "A very broad range is experiencing some thinning," and Becker stated understanding this helps understand planetary evolution.
This cratonic thinning process occurs over millions of years and will not cause immediate surface changes, researchers assert.

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Sci Tech Daily

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Scientists Discover That North America Is “Dripping” Down Into Earth’s Mantle

Researchers have discovered cratonic thinning occurring beneath North America, driven by the remnants of the Farallon Plate. Researchers have discovered that the underside of the North American continent is slowly dripping away in blobs of rock. The remnants of a tectonic plate sinking into the Earth’s mantle may be the cause of this phenomenon. A [...]

23 hours ago

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IFLScience

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North America Is Dripping Into Earth's Mantle And An Ancient Victim Is Probably To Blame

Far be it from us to suggest there’s a parallel between the continental plate’s behavior and what is happening on top, but what once seemed solid and permanent is wearing thin.

23 hours ago

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Nature

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Seismic full-waveform tomography of active cratonic thinning beneath North America consistent with slab-induced dripping

Continental cratons are characterized by thick lithospheric roots that remain intact for billions of years. However, some cratonic roots appear to have been thinned or completely removed in the geological past. The mechanisms for thinning have been difficult to distinguish for these past events. Here we present a full-waveform seismic tomographic model for North America that allows the resolution of fine-scale structures and reveals an extensive…

2 days ago·United Kingdom

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Live Science

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A lost chunk of ancient continent is sucking bits of North America into Earth's mantle

Seismic mapping of North America has revealed that an ancient slab of crust buried beneath the Midwest is causing the crust above it to "drip" and suck down rocks from across the continent.

2 days ago·United States

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Phys.org

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North America is dripping from below, geoscientists discover

Researchers have discovered that the underside of the North American continent is dripping away in blobs of rock—and that the remnants of a tectonic plate sinking in Earth's mantle may be the reason why.

3 days ago·United Kingdom

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Signs of the Times

North America is 'dripping' down into Earth's mantle, scientists...

Seismic mapping of North America has revealed that an ancient slab of crust buried beneath the Midwest is causing the crust above it to "drip" and suck down rocks from across the continent. An ancient slab of Earth's crust buried deep beneath the Midwest is sucking huge swatches of present-day's North American crust down into the mantle, researchers say. The slab's pull has created giant "drips" that hang from the underside of the continent down…

19 hours ago

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