Deep beneath Ethiopia’s Afar Rift, scientists have detected rhythmic surges of molten mantle rock—geologic heartbeats powerful enough to thin Earth’s crust, pry Africa apart, and seed a future ocean.
Chemical “barcodes” in volcanic rocks reveal that these pulses rise in waves, guided by shifting tectonic plates and varying with plate thickness and spreading speed. The discovery ties deep-Earth dynamics directly to surface volcanism and earthquakes, reshaping our understanding of continental breakup.
Pulsing Mantle Discovery
A team of Earth scientists from the University of Southampton has uncovered something extraordinary deep beneath Africa: rhythmic surges of molten rock rising from the Earth’s mantle like a pulsing heartbeat.
These powerful underground pulses are slowly pulling the African continent apart. Over time, this process could lead to the creation of a brand-new ocean.
Published in Nature Geoscience, the research focuses on Ethiopia’s Afar region, one of the most geologically active places on the planet. Beneath this landscape lies a massive plume of superheated mantle rock that rises upward in pulses—an inner rhythm that may be shaping the continent’s future.
What makes this discovery even more fascinating is how the molten material doesn’t move on its own. It’s influenced by the tectonic plates above—the giant slabs of Earth’s crust that shift and drift over time.
Plates Stretch, Ocean Forms
In places like Afar, tectonic plates are slowly pulling away from each other. As they stretch, the crust thins out—similar to soft, stretched taffy—until it eventually cracks. When this happens, it opens the door for a new ocean basin to form.
Lead author Dr. Emma Watts, who conducted the research at the University of Southampton and is now based at Swansea University, said: “We found that the mantle beneath Afar is not uniform or stationary – it pulses, and these pulses carry distinct chemical signatures. These ascending pulses of partially molten mantle are channelled by the rifting plates above. That’s important for how we think about the interaction between Earth’s interior and its surface.”
The project involved experts from 10 institutions, including the University of Southampton, Swansea University, Lancaster University, the Universities of Florence and Pisa, GEOMAR in Germany, the Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies, Addis Ababa University, and the GFZ German Research Centre for Geosciences.
Afar Rift Hotspot
The Afar region is a rare place on Earth where three tectonic rifts converge: the Main Ethiopian Rift, the Red Sea Rift, and the Gulf of Aden Rift.
Geologists have long suspected that a hot upwelling of mantle, sometimes referred to as a plume, lies beneath the region, helping to drive the extension of the crust and the birth of a future ocean basin. But until now, little was known about the structure of this upwelling, or how it behaves beneath rifting plates.
Chemical Heartbeat Evidence
The team collected more than 130 volcanic rock samples from across the Afar region and the Main Ethiopian Rift.
They used these, along with existing data and advanced statistical modeling, to investigate the structure of the crust and mantle, as well as the melts it contains.
Their results show that underneath the Afar region is a single, asymmetric plume, with distinct chemical bands that repeat across the rift system, like geological barcodes. These patterns vary in spacing depending on the tectonic conditions in each rift arm.
Tom Gernon, Professor of Earth Science at the University of Southampton and co-author of the study, said: “The chemical striping suggests the plume is pulsing, like a heartbeat. These pulses appear to behave differently depending on the thickness of the plate, and how fast it’s pulling apart. In faster-spreading rifts like the Red Sea, the pulses travel more efficiently and regularly like a pulse through a narrow artery.”
Volcanism, Quakes & Breakup
This new research shows that the mantle plume beneath the Afar region is not static, but dynamic and responsive to the tectonic plate above it.
Dr. Derek Keir, Associate Professor in Earth Science at the University of Southampton and the University of Florence, and co-author of the study, said: “We have found that the evolution of deep mantle upwellings is intimately tied to the motion of the plates above. This has profound implications for how we interpret surface volcanism, earthquake activity, and the process of continental breakup.”
“The work shows that deep mantle upwellings can flow beneath the base of tectonic plates and help to focus volcanic activity to where the tectonic plate is thinnest. Follow-on research includes understanding how and at what rate mantle flow occurs beneath plates,” added Keir.
Collaborative Science Outlook
Dr. Watts added: “Working with researchers with different expertise across institutions, as we did for this project, is essential to unravelling the processes that happen under Earth’s surface and relate it to recent volcanism. Without using a variety of techniques, it is hard to see the full picture, like putting a puzzle together when you don’t have all the pieces.”
Reference: “Mantle upwelling at Afar triple junction shaped by overriding plate dynamics” by Emma J. Watts, Rhiannon Rees, Philip Jonathan, Derek Keir, Rex N. Taylor, Melanie Siegburg, Emma L. Chambers, Carolina Pagli, Matthew J. Cooper, Agnes Michalik, J. Andrew Milton, Thea K. Hincks, Ermias F. Gebru, Atalay Ayele, Bekele Abebe and Thomas M. Gernon, 25 June 2025, Nature Geoscience.
DOI: 10.1038/s41561-025-01717-0
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7 Comments
“What makes this discovery even more fascinating is how the molten material doesn’t move on its own. It’s influenced by the tectonic plates above—the giant slabs of Earth’s crust that shift and drift over time.”
This statement gives the wrong impression. It makes it sound like plates are responsible for plumes or convection cells. They have the correlation backwards.
“Geologists have long suspected that a hot upwelling of mantle, sometimes referred to as a plume, lies beneath the region, helping to drive the extension of the crust and the birth of a future ocean basin.”
This statement is closer to what geologists accept as what is happening. That is, a viscous plume rises until it hits the relatively solid plate(s), spreads out, and drags the overlying plate with it as it spreads. The contradictory writing presents a confusing picture of what they think is happening.
We will type some important words, the name of a city or country or a name related to holy places for you and read them backwards, like the word Muqaddas, which when read backwards becomes Hundred Gham, or the words Man Hajj, which when read backwards becomes Man and Hajj, it becomes Hell. If we read the word Mecca backwards, it becomes Hekm and Hakam, which is written with the letter H with two eyes, and means hacking. For example, someone says that they hacked my phone data and others say who and when hacked you. That person writes exactly the word Mecca backwards and says that they hacked me and I don’t know who hacked me. This word Hekm or Hakam has several meanings. Did the gods of the earth rule like this or those who ruled in Saudi Arabia? The word Mecca, which has no family name, but when we read backwards, it has several meanings that are related to the ruling humans and the ruling and the gods of the earth. For example, why is the name of the country Panama, which has a bird’s foot connected, when we read it backwards, we will get this word meaning Aman and Ap, and this Aman and Ap is very strange? The word Aman is originally related to the history of those who lived on this continent of America 65 million years ago, which is related to the shape of the profile and profile of a man whose foot is connected to the head and profile of the old man, the chief of the tribe, and the full profile or profile of a flying bird whose left wing is broken is seen in the northernmost part of the North American continent, and the right wing of this large bird is the map of the country of Alaska
The head of this bird can be seen on the east coast of North America and Canada. Even in the mouth of this bird you will see a man lying on the ground with his hands handcuffed by the police and a Colt gun by his side. In the mouth of this bird you can see a fish, a barbed fish. The right hand of the policeman, which extends to the chest and beak of the lower jaw of this bird, which cooperates with the police to trap criminals, can be seen on the east coast of Canada. Now let’s go to the continent of South America. I said the profile of a man with his head down and his face is the map of Brazil, which is clearly visible in the entire South American country. A horse, which is the map of the entire country of Argentina, is seen in profile. The map of Chile is seen as a long feather from the neck and chest of an old man of the tribe. And the country of Peru, which means feather in Persian, is exactly the map of this country of Peru, which is visible in the form of a feather on the ear of the old chief of the tribe. The tip of the feather is downwards and the cheek of the Indian face is located, meaning the head of the feather is below the face and ears of the Indian. Even the name of the country Paraguay means feather in Persian. The name of the country Brazil is an abbreviation of several names that in Persian mean “go under this tree”. “Tree” means a strong person. Men who are physically strong became the leaders of the Indian tribe. In the same country Brazil, the last two letters of the word “Brazil” are the same as “tree”, which is the first Surah of the Quran that refers to “tree” as the bottom of this planet. The name of this Surah is Surah At-Tawheed. “Lam Yald” means “God leans on this tree.” “Tree” means “You are a great son.” “Tree” also means “warrior.” Who demarcated these countries and shaped the borders in this way, like a man and a bird? Well, it is clear that God did this through inspiration and revelation
ببخشید این متن را من ارسال کردم برای اینکه مربوط به متن پایین میشود مجبور شدم زیر متن اسپانسر بگذارم اما این متن ربطی به پاسخ برای اسپانسر ندارد اما جالب هست اگر آن را با کمک با شخصی که فارسی بلد باشد آن را مرور کنید شاید برای شما جالب باشد بدانید کلماتی در اسمهای کشورها هست که آنها را حتما خداوند تعیین کردند نه همه این اسمهای کشورها را بعضی از این اسمهای کشورها مثل پاناما که در فارسی به معنای پای پرنده و نمای ما انسانها و نمای اون پرنده معنی دارد یعنی خداوند با اسم گذاری روی کشور پاناما به چند مسئله مهم اشاره کرده در شکل این کشور مهم که وقتی به طرف جنوب میرویم هم به نمای یک مرد بزرگ میرسیم هم پای این پرنده بزرگ را میتوانید در نقشه کشور پاناما مشاهده کنید مپ کل آمریکای شمالی تن این پرنده در حال پرواز میباشد کاشف این راز بزرگ دکتر مهرداد آقاکثیری میباشد نویسنده کتب الهی و نجومی شاعر عرفانی اهل تهران
All this tribal man figure is related to the extinction of life on Earth and dinosaurs and the time of 65 million years is very accurate. I calculated a complete revolution of the arms of the Milky Way. A complete revolution when the large arms of the galaxy, which are the Milky Way, want to go around the core of the galaxy. These large arms of the Milky Way will take 130 million years. In fact, the Milky Way collides with solar and sun objects twice in each revolution, and each collision takes 65 million years. I made precise calculations. Consider that every year these arms of the Milky Way approach the sun by 11,668,000,000 kilometers. Considering the area that the sun’s environment has around the core of the galaxy, this distance is accurate every year. In fact, the environment that the sun travels is about one million and five hundred thousand trillion kilometers, and now the Milky Way is passing through the solar system. Considering the distance of the nearest star Alpha Centauri, the first stars of the Milky Way will enter the solar system in about 3,600 years. I guess that more than a dozen stars, ten to They are a hundred times smaller than the Sun. They will reach the Sun through the Milky Way at a speed of 370 kilometers per second. I calculated the speed of the Sun as 230 kilometers per second, and the speed of the Milky Way stars as 600 kilometers per second. The speed of the Sun will be less than the Milky Way stars, meaning the speed of these stars hitting the Solar System is 370 kilometers per second. What do you think?
There is a crucial issue regarding the rapid movement of the large arms of the galaxy. These two large arms are essentially the same stars of the Milky Way. The stars of the Milky Way determine the time of collision with solar objects and the Sun. As I said before, the speed of these very light stars is several times the speed of the Sun. As a result, these two large arms of the Milky Way Galaxy, with the Sun and solar objects, passed through the system twenty times over the past four and a half billion years.
And they caused the Kuiper belt and the outer and inner belts to form, and the formation of the solar system and the creation of more than 243 moons, most of which are orbited by the gas planet Jupiter. In fact, they are not moons. These small planets are related to the stars of the Milky Way that collided with the Sun and solar bodies four and a half billion years ago, causing life on Earth to be renewed several times in the past.
The great arms of the Milky Way have passed through the solar system. Over the course of four and a half billion years, these two great arms of the Milky Way have passed through the solar system exactly 69 times, and more than thousands of planets and stars have collided with the Sun and solar bodies. I said earlier that these stars are lighter and very, very small. If they were not attracted to the Sun, the Sun’s hydrogen gas would be exhausted and the Earth would not be habitable. In each collision, more than a dozen stars collided with the Sun. دکتر مهرداد آقاکثیری شماره واتساپ 00989332197646
Hello and greetings to you, those who are interested in astrophysics. Eleven years ago, I made a very important discovery about the history of the solar system and the Milky Way. Of course, it should not go unnoticed. I made this important discovery and secrets through communication with a jinn, who is the same subtle spirit of humans who is 100% sent by God. In fact, I must admit that I achieved these secrets and secrets of the underground and… due to the intense interest I had in the stars of the night sky since childhood and through the revelation from God from the surahs that were inspired and revealed to me over a period of three years from 89, 90 and 91. I, like Dr. Kaku, believe that the gods of the earth supervise some of the important issues of humans and we can observe and examine this supervision in keywords. Previously, I talked about the code words and keywords of God on this scientific and technical site… I recently came to the conclusion that asteroids, whose number reaches more than trillions, are wandering in the Milky Way. The reason for the darkening of the center of the galaxy and the middle of the large arms of the galaxy is because of the planets and planets. There are very small ones that move along the large arms of the Milky Way, and every 65 million years, when the Milky Way makes a half-turn around the core, more than tens of billions of asteroids have collided with solar bodies and the Sun in the past, causing the Kuiper Belt and all these changes in the solar system. I stated the number of planets and stars that enter the solar system from the Milky Way as more than dozens of stars with their planets, but in the comment above, when translating, they reported their number as twelve stars. These discrepancies in the dictation during translation sometimes occur