Scientists Reveal Hidden Waves Could Shape Earth's Mysterious Highlands

25 August 2024
By Mike McRae



Mountain peak in South Africa's 'Great Escarpment', or Drakensberg. (Emil von Maltitz/Getty Images)

Deep within our planet's continents rise plateaus that defy easy explanation. No volcano, no continental collisions, no rising plumes of molten rock can neatly make sense of their mix of location and dramatic features.

Using statistical analysis and simulations informed by geological studies, researchers from the UK and Germany have thrown a radical new idea into the mix of possible solutions, arguing slow-moving instabilities triggered by rifts in Earth's fractured crust are behind the strange anomalies.

From the Brazilian Highlands to South Africa's Great Escarpment to the Western Ghats of India, our planet is dotted with vast, flat highlands rimmed with steep walls that dominate the landscape.

These monstrous plateaus lie hundreds of kilometers from the nearest rift over sections of crust thought to be geologically stable, their birth timed tens of millions of years after the forces pushing at the nearest continental seams fell quiet. This makes it difficult to pin the blame squarely on Earth's tectonic movements.

"Scientists have long suspected that steep kilometer-high topographic features called Great Escarpments – like the classic example encircling South Africa – are formed when continents rift and eventually split apart," says University of Southampton geologist Tom Gernon.

More:
https://www.sciencealert.com/scientists-reveal-hidden-waves-could-shape-earths-mysterious-highlands