These Weird Underground Objects Might Shake Our Planet

Bright Side

🌋 What lies beneath your feet might be more dangerous—and more mysterious—than you think. All around the world, scientists are finding strange underground structures that defy logic... and may actually trigger supervolcanoes. 😱 These aren’t just rocks and tunnels—they’re geological riddles that might hold the key to Earth's most explosive secrets. From Yellowstone to the Andes, these deep, dark chambers could change everything we thought we knew about eruptions.  So if you're into mysteries that could shake the planet (literally), this is one ride you don’t want to miss. Grab your helmet—because things are about to go deep, weird, and very, very hot. 🔥  Credit: Formation of the Moon: By NASA, https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:ARC-20221004-AAV3443-MoonOrigin-Social-NASAWeb-1080p_medium.oggtheora.ogg Earthquakes of the First 15 Years: By PacificTWC, https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Earthquakes_of_the_First_15_Years_of_the_21st_Century.webm Eruption column from Crater Peak vent in 1992: By R. McGimsey (U.S. Geological Survey) - pubs.usgs.gov, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mount_Spurr#/media/File:Eruption_column_from_Crater_Peak_vent.jpg Eruption of Mount St. Helens: By National Archives and Records Administration, https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Eruption_of_Mount_St._Helens,_1980.ogv A broad view of Hunga Tonga-Hunga Ha‘apai’s powerful eruption: By Himawari imagery: CSU/CIRA & JMA/JAXA, https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Broad_View_of_Hunga_Tonga-Hunga_Ha%E2%80%98apai_Eruption_(CIRA_2022-01-15_-_labels).webm A fifteen hour time lapse of the large plume: By Himawari imagery: CSU/CIRA & JMA/JAXA, https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Massive_Ash_Plume_Erupts_From_Hunga_Tonga-Hunga_Ha%E2%80%98apai_%E2%80%93_Ash_Product_(CIRA_2022-01-15_-_labels).webm Complete transcript available: By NASA's Scientific Visualization Studio - Intern/Emily S Watkins, Advocates in Manpower Management, Inc./Kathleen Gaeta, NASA, Chief Scientist Goddard/James Garvin, https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:How_NASA_Sees_the_Life_Cycle_of_Volcanic_Island_Hunga_Tonga-Hunga_Ha%E2%80%99apai_(SVS14214).webm CC BY 4.0, https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/: Rio do Rasto Formation paleoart reconstruction: By Paleo Miguel, https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Rio_do_Rasto_Formation_paleoart_reconstruction.png Hubblecast 77: By Hubblecast 77: Hubble and the Bermuda Triangle of space, https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Hubblecast_77.webm Tectonic plate model 1Ga: By Andrew Merdith, https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Tectonic_plate_model_1Ga.webm Add a one-line explanation of what this file represents: By Chang S, Ferreira A, Faccenda M, https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Upper--and-mid-mantle-interaction-between-the-Samoan-plume-and-the-Tonga%E2%80%93Kermadec-slabs-ncomms10799-s4.ogv Upper--and-mid-mantle-interaction: By Chang S, Ferreira A, Faccenda M, https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Upper--and-mid-mantle-interaction-between-the-Samoan-plume-and-the-Tonga%E2%80%93Kermadec-slabs-ncomms10799-s5.ogv Entstehung und Quellen des Himalaya-Gebirges: By ZDF/Terra X/Faszination Erde/C. Götz-Sobel/O. Rötz/M. Zimmermann/Maximilian Mohr, https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Entstehung_und_Quellen_des_Himalaya-Gebirges.webm CC BY-SA 4.0, https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/: World map of known VEI 7 and VEI 8 volcanoes: By Maphobbyist, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Supervolcano#/media/File:Supervolcano_World_Map.png LLSVP: By Sanne.cottaar, https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:LLSVP.gif Animation is created by Bright Side.  ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Music from TheSoul Sound: https://thesoul-sound.com/   Check our Bright Side podcast on Spotify and leave a positive review! https://open.spotify.com/show/0hUkPxD34jRLrMrJux4VxV   Subscribe to Bright Side: https://goo.gl/rQTJZz ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------  Stock materials (photos, footages and other): https://www.depositphotos.com https://www.shutterstock.com https://www.eastnews.ru ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------  For more videos and articles visit: http://www.brightside.me  ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- This video is made for entertainment purposes. We do not make any warranties about the completeness, safety and reliability. Any action you take upon the information in this video is strictly at your own risk, and we will not be liable for any damages or losses. It is the viewer's responsibility to use judgement, care and precaution if you plan to replicate.

Transcript

00:00Deep inside our planet, there are two massive blobs of rock that have puzzled scientists for

00:05years. They sit deep inside, opposite each other. One lurks under the Pacific Ocean,

00:11the other under Africa. And they're so weird, they even make seismic waves slow down.

00:18Their actual name is Large Low-Velocity Provinces. But they're just two enormous,

00:23mysterious blobs of rock, bigger than continents, stranger than anything else inside the Earth,

00:29and so dense they might be leftovers from another planet. Until recently, no one knew what they were,

00:36where they came from, or why they even exist. These mysterious blobs could hold the secret to

00:42Earth's deepest forces, powerful enough to shape earthquakes, drive volcanic eruptions,

00:48and even influence the evolution of life itself. And now, we might finally learn the truth about

00:54them. These geological monsters are hidden about 1800 miles beneath the surface. Each one is 100

01:02times taller than Mount Everest, so vast they defy explanation. At first, scientists thought these

01:09were primordial remnants from Earth's early days. Maybe something giant smashed into Earth about

01:154.5 billion years ago, and this impact formed both the Moon and these blobs. Scientists believe

01:21it could have been a planet named Thea, a Mars-sized planet that existed somewhere around the asteroid

01:27belt and slammed into Earth back in the day. Others believe it could be something much more

01:33familiar – old chunks of Earth's crust. Perhaps they got pushed deep into the mantle by the movement

01:39of tectonic plates. And now, a new study shows that these blobs are massive piles of oceanic crust

01:45that have been sinking into the Earth for billions of years. They could have formed from the stuff that

01:51sinks into Earth when tectonic plates collide. Over a billion years, pieces of ocean crust could have

01:58been swallowed by the mantle. Eventually, they collect it into two massive regions deep inside

02:03the planet. But even though both blobs form the same way, they aren't identical. There's this place

02:10called the Pacific Ring of Fire, a giant loop of volcanoes and earthquake zones around the Pacific Ocean.

02:16Well, the Pacific Blob doesn't just stop growing and changing because it's constantly being fed fresh

02:23rock from that place. Tectonic plates crash into each other, and one plate sinks beneath another,

02:30pushing old ocean crust deep into the Earth. Since this keeps happening, the Pacific Blob is heavier,

02:37denser, and more active than its twin under Africa. It's like a giant hot rock factory,

02:42constantly getting new material and reshaping itself over time.

02:47The African blob is much older and quieter than the one under the Pacific. It doesn't get fresh rock

02:53pushed into it as often. That's why, over time, it has blended more with the surrounding mantle.

03:00Since it's less dense, it behaves differently. It rises higher into the Earth's mantle, stretching 340

03:07miles closer to the surface. And that might be why Africa has so many powerful volcanoes and rift valleys

03:14today. The biggest question is, how do they keep evolving? Scientists think that huge columns of hot

03:21rock called mantle plumes might be pushing up from deep inside the Earth, helping to drive the movement

03:27of tectonic plates in the Pacific. If they're right, then these giant underground blobs aren't just sitting

03:33there. They're almost alive in a way. They'd be constantly changing and shaping the surface of our

03:39planet. But why do they even matter? Because these weird underground structures may be shaping

03:46Earth's surface in ways we don't fully understand yet. You see, first, they might influence Earth's

03:53magnetic field. That's because they affect how heat moves through the mantle and core. They might also

03:59hold clues about the history of plate tectonics. Studying them could help us figure out when

04:04subduction began on Earth, whether it was over 4 billion years ago or much more recently.

04:11These guys might also be secret puppet masters behind volcanic activity. There's a theory that

04:17blazing hot rock from deep inside the Earth, the same kind that creates volcanic hotspots, might be

04:23rising straight from the giant blobs in the mantle. Some of the biggest volcanoes on Earth,

04:28including those in Hawaii, Iceland, and Yellowstone, sit directly above the suspected rising plumes

04:35from these blobs. If these blobs are fueling these volcanoes, then they could be responsible for shaping

04:42Earth's continents, climate, and even mass extinctions throughout history. And, well, that's horrifying.

04:49That would mean that these giant structures might burst through Earth's crust one day, unleashing

04:54catastrophic supervolcanic eruptions. And these eruptions would last for millions of years.

05:00Beneath the Earth's surface also lies monsters, unlike anything else on this planet. Supervolcanoes.

05:07They're so massive, so destructive, and so rare that no human has ever witnessed one erupt.

05:13A regular volcanic eruption can be terrifying. Lava spewing into the sky, ash choking the air,

05:20fire. Entire cities buried under fire and stone. But a supervolcano? Well, that's something else

05:26entirely. A supervolcano isn't just big, it's a category of its own. Their eruptions rip apart the

05:34Earth itself, creating massive craters called calderas. Some of them are over 30 miles wide.

05:41A regular volcanic eruption might spew out a few cubic miles of lava and ash. A supervolcano unleashes more

05:48than 240 cubic miles of material. That's enough to bury an entire continent in ash.

05:55An eruption like this would be newsworthy, to say the least. First, a wall of fire would blow up into

06:01the sky. Ash would block out the sun for years, dropping global temperatures. Entire countries could

06:08be buried under meters of ash, making farming impossible. Famine, extreme cold, and toxic air

06:15could wipe out entire civilizations. It wouldn't just be a local disaster, it would be global.

06:21In fact, two of the worst mass extinctions in Earth's history, where almost all life was wiped

06:26out, might have been caused by supervolcanoes, not asteroids. The biggest and most horrifying one

06:33was at the end of the Permian period. Literally, about 90% of all marine species and 70% of land species

06:40went poof. Scientists have counted about 20 supervolcanoes on Earth today. The most famous

06:47ones are Yellowstone in the US, Toba in Indonesia, and Topau in New Zealand.

06:53Now, the last time Yellowstone erupted was roughly 2 million years ago. It released almost 590 cubic

07:00miles of material, enough to bury a city like New York. That was just one of three Yellowstone

07:06supereruptions. The most recent supervolcano to erupt was Topau in New Zealand. This happened

07:13about 26,500 years ago. But supervolcanoes don't just destroy, they reshape the entire planet.

07:22About 74,000 years ago, the Toba supervolcano erupted in Indonesia. Some scientists believe it triggered

07:29a volcanic winter that lasted an entire decade. There are also theories that suggest that this

07:36eruption nearly wiped out early humans. It reduced their numbers to just a few thousand

07:41survivors. Although that's just speculation. Either way, we know for sure that supervolcano

07:48eruptions have changed the course of history. So how do we prepare for them if this could

07:53happen at any moment? Well, scientists monitor volcanoes constantly, looking for warning signs.

07:59It could be stuff like rising magma, ground swelling, earthquakes beneath a volcano,

08:05changes in gas emissions, and so on. The problem is that while we can predict short-term eruptions,

08:12the long-term ones are still a mystery. Yellowstone last erupted 630,000 years ago.

08:18It's literally overdue for another eruption already. But volcanoes don't work like clocks. Just because

08:25one erupted in the past doesn't mean it will definitely go wild again, and the time between

08:30eruptions could be random. Scientists think Yellowstone could erupt again, but it might be

08:36just a small lava flow instead of a supereruption. Are we ready for a supereruption if it happens?

08:43Probably not. Scientists say we're more prepared for an asteroid strike than a supervolcano eruption.

08:49When Hunga Tonga Hunga Ha'apai erupted in 2022, it cut off communications, caused tsunamis,

08:57and filled the sky with ash. And that was only a magnitude 5 eruption. A supervolcano would be

09:04orders of magnitude worse. So, good luck sleeping at night knowing these guys will erupt again.

09:10Maybe tomorrow. Maybe in 100,000 years. Nah, don't lose sleep over it. That's it for today. So hey,

09:18if you pacified your curiosity, then give the video a like and share it with your friends.

09:22Or if you want more, just click on these videos and stay on the bright side.

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