"Many people think that the devil came. Some believe that this is the beginning of the end of the world". For George Henry Krista, who wrote it on January 23, 1812, earthquakes, who broke the valley of the Mississippi river, were completely inexplicable phenomenon.

It took two centuries. Can we say that humanity is approaching the understanding of such disasters?

The devastating earthquake that occurred in the Midwestern United States, where they seemingly nowhere could not only mystery of those that still plagued by geologists. "Fossil" the landscape of the West coast of Scotland, underwater volcanoes in the South Pacific ocean, expanded land in southern Africa - everywhere we see examples of what one theory of plate tectonics is clearly not enough.

New research hints that the answer lies much deeper. Perhaps Geology at the threshold of discovery, which stirred up science as well as the theory of plate tectonics have done it half a century ago.

The main idea of this theory is that the top layer of soil (rock goes to the depth 60-250 km) consists of several relatively rigid parts that float on top of a viscous mantle. For the first time the thought of the lithosphere expressed in 1912 German geophysicist Alfred Wegener. Based on the distribution of the petrified remains of animals and plants, he suggested that once existed on the planet unified continent Pangaea, which split into the current continents about 200 million years ago.

The scientist could not describe the mechanism of such movement, and his hypothesis was subjected to ridicule. But gradually accumulated body of evidence of the correctness of bitterness, and in the 1960s, the researchers had to finally admit that plate tectonics able not only to explain many features of the relief of the Earth, but the fact that seismic and volcanic activity of the planet is concentrated mainly along the identified bands that are reasonable to consider the borders between the plates.

Something where the plates move apart. On land this leads to the formation of the rift valleys, and at the bottom of the ocean - to the exit of mantle material, which, freezing, creates a new crust.

In other places plate crush on each other, giving rise to a mountain chain or ducking each other in subduction zones. In the latter case, this leads to the appearance of deep troughs in the ocean.

The theory has been so successful that it became refers almost religious reverence. "All eyes turned to the horizontal movement, and scientists have missed something even more interesting," says geologist Nicky white of the University of Cambridge (UK).

We are talking about what is happening deep inside the Earth, far beyond the standard tectonic theory. American geophysicist Jason Morgan, a pioneer of modern view of tectonics of plates, in 1970-ies was one of the first to find fault with their own theories, having volcanism in the Hawaiian Islands. This archipelago is located thousands of kilometers from the borders of the Pacific plate on which it sits. The theory of plate tectonics explains the local volcanism that in this place stove somehow thin, making mantle material and breaks out. Morgan drew attention to the idea expressed previously canadian geophysicist John Tuzo Wilson, on the stream of mantle material, which for unknown reasons makes its way to the top.

The hypothesis was going against the current, so it started to seriously work only in the mid-1980s, when seismic waves revealed a lot about the inner part of the planet. The fact that these waves travel at different speeds through the material of varying density and temperature.

Based on new data, three-dimensional maps were blurry, but they testified to the fact that the dynamics of the mantle is much more difficult than it was considered. Eventually managed to find two huge clusters of very hot and dense material thermochemical in the lower part of the mantle, near the border with molten core. One is in the southern part of the Pacific ocean and the other below Africa. Each has several thousand kilometers in diameter and rises above each post hot material, which seems to grow towards the surface.

This could explain why the bottom in the centre of the South Pacific ocean, about a kilometre rises above the surrounding terrain. The same can be said about Africa. "The whole region from the Congo to South Africa, including Madagascar, built like this plume," said Mr. white.

Then was able to identify the mantle posts smaller under Iceland and Hawaii, which explains the emergence of these Islands, and volcanism. At the same time near the coast of Argentina the seabed, on the contrary, goes down for almost a kilometer, for which, according to new data, is responsible cold and downward flow in the mantle. A similar phenomenon occurs in Africa: on the crest of a rising flow detected ascending and descending streams smaller, which correspond to local peculiarities of topography.

In short, wherever you look - everywhere vertical movement reconstructing the surface of the Earth.

There remains, however, unclear what the mechanism is the basis of these processes. The standard theory of plate tectonics States that material, sinking into the mantle at subduction zones, returns to the surface through volcanic activity near the same zone or on, on the plate boundaries (see infographic above; high resolution here). However, according to new data, a significant part of the material of the plates that fit under the other, ships in the lower mantle. As pointed Dietmar Muller of the University of Sydney (Australia), mantle need to maintain a balance mass, so the material or its equivalent should be returned to the top.

But how exactly? The modelling performed in the past year Bernhard Steinberger from the German research centre for Geosciences and his colleagues showed how abdullovna stove, moving to the boundary between the mantle and the core, stretching the material around them. As soon as it enters into thermochemical accumulation, begin to form ascending streams. "As we see, the plumes are formed more or less in the same places", - emphasizes Mr. Steinberger. For example, the model suggests that immersion plates under the Aleutian Islands near Alaska nourishes the mantle flow under Hawaii.

Meanwhile Clint Conrad of the University of Hawaii at Manoa (USA) and his colleagues modeled the effect of the movement of tectonic plates, while the mantle is moving in the other direction. They found: if such effect takes place in the region where the mantle density varies or the overlying plate is uneven thickness, it can cause of mantle material is melting and lifting. This model quite accurately predicted that the volcano should appear in the West, not the East of the East Pacific rise mid - ocean ridge, which is roughly parallel to the Western coast of South America. Seismic measurements show that the mantle and the part of the plate to the West of the ridge move in opposite directions, and the mantle, and the part of the plate to the East - no. The model also predicts that this effect has the greatest power in the Western United States, southern Europe, Eastern Australia and Antarctica, i.e. in areas of volcanic activity outside the boundaries of lithospheric plates.

If the dynamics of the deep structure of the Earth can change the surface topography today, this is true for yesterday. But at that time, as paleontological and geological record tells us about continental drift of the past, seismic measurements are only here and now.

However, Mr. white and his colleagues found some hints on the history of the West coast of Scotland. They staged several explosions and seismic waves revealed "fossil" landscape which is about 55 million years. It is replete with hills, valleys and river courses, lying outwards at a depth of 2 km below the seabed.

By studying the changes of the river bed, the scientists were able to show that this landscape has risen by about a mile above sea level, and then was re-buried. It all happened too quickly to the destruction of the mountains could be attributed to the tectonics of plates and erosion. Rather, the point in the mantle trickle to a deviation from the plume that nourishes the Icelandic volcanoes. "Imagine that under the carpet ran the rat: a carpet rose and fell," explains the scientist.

The group Mr. Muller came to the conclusion that a similar vertical movement took place in Eastern Australia in the Cretaceous period (65-145 million years ago).

Even the fact that earlier seemed to completely relied on the theory of plate tectonics, now looks different. For example, it is believed that the Himalayas were formed 35 million years ago, when the Indian plate crashed into Eurasia. However, plate tectonics, does not explain the fact that the plate developed an unbelievable speed of 18 cm per year (instead of eight).

Stephen Kang and Dave Stegman from the SCRIPPS Institute of Oceanography (USA) believe that there has not been without a mantle plume. By the way, he is the source of large-scale eruptions that have shaped Judgment traps around 67 million years ago.

Abnormal and sometimes destructive seismicity Midwestern United States, meanwhile, can be explained by plate tectonics and distribution of surface tension, but it was vertical. In 2007, Alessandro Forte from the University of Quebec (Canada) and his colleagues laid the responsibility on the ancient Farallon plate, which began to fall in the mantle along the West coast of North America during the Cretaceous period. The simulation showed that to date stove went deep enough to cause downwelling valley of the Mississippi river and the deformation of the upper lithosphere, which led to the catastrophic earthquakes of two centuries ago.

Not everyone agrees with the new theory. Gillian Foulger of Durham University (UK) argues that the area around Iceland, for example, not hot rest of the Mid-Atlantic ridge. Topography of Iceland and local volcanic activity can adequately be explained by tectonic activity on the border of plates without the involvement of the plums. She and her colleagues also note that, although seismic waves indeed slower travel with Iceland, Hawaii and other "hot spots", this anomaly is not observed all the way to the lower mantle.

Enthusiasts believe that with time will be obtained clearer seismic data, which will confirm a new theory. For example, in the US unfolds the EarthScope project, which will cover the seismographs all over the country. It would be good to do something like this in Africa, and at the bottom of the Pacific ocean. And, better still, on the whole planet!

Prepared according to NewScientist.