It is one of the most mysterious gravitational anomalies on Earth. After years of investigations, scientists have discovered the origin of this gravitational hole in the Indian Ocean
The acceleration of gravity is a constant on Earth, but our planet is not a uniform sphere. It is covered in lumps and bumps: a geoid. Deep beneath the Indian Ocean, that pull weakens to an extremely low level, leaving what is considered a huge gravity “hole” of about three million square kilometers roughly where the seafloor sinks into a gigantic depression.
Earth’s gravitational anomalies
It is one of the most mysterious gravitational anomalies on Earth and its presence has been studied for a long time. Naval surveys and satellite measurements revealed that just off the tip of the Indian subcontinent has subsided due to the gravitational “tug of war” between the depression found in the Indian Ocean and the surrounding geology. What caused this weakening has never been clear. Now two researchers at the Indian Institute of Science think they have an answer. “All these studies looked at the current anomaly and did not concern themselves with how this depression arose.”
“Under the Earth’s Crust”
They think the answer lies more than 1,000 kilometers beneath the Earth’s crust, where the cold, dense remnants of an ancient ocean sank beneath Africa about 30 million years ago, throwing up hot molten rock. But their findings, based on , are unlikely to resolve a heated debate about the origins of this gravitational hole, at least until we have more data. Updates on the matter will certainly follow.
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