Scientists Just Figured Out Where The Disappeared Massive Chunk Of Earth’s Crust Is

The biggest continental clash in the history of Earth occurred nearly 60 million years ago when the Indian landmass collided into the Eurasian tectonic plate. That magnanimous clash gave rise to the Himalayan landscape. But a massive part of Earth's crust disappeared at the time of collision.

A new study has found that the clash not only sent the landmasses upwards, a large part of Earth's crust from the two continents was driven underground.

A team led by University of Chicago comprising of well read geophysicists designed new modeling techniques to figure out the approximate landmass that would have existed before the continental collision take place. Taking into account the amount of Earth's crust we see today, the study has concluded that a large part of the two places has disappeared.

"What we found is that half of the mass that was there 60 million years ago is missing from Earth's surface today," says one of the team, Miquela Ingalls.

The researchers were surely stunned by the amount of Earth's crust that has disappeared in the epic collision, but more surprising is where the researching committee thinks it all went. Under ordinary circumstances, when two or more tectonic plates collide with each other, the continental crust is supposed to rise up since it has buoyancy and low density.   

On the other hand, oceanic crust is thinner but denser. Hence it slides downwards into the Earth's mantle. Though geology says that the continental crust is buoyant and that it can't slide down into the mantle about the disappearance of enormous amount of Earth's crust post collision is that all the missing part of crust headed underground.

"We really have significant amounts of crust that have disappeared from the crustal reservoir, and the only place that it can go is into the mantle," says researcher David Rowley.

The researchers say that the attempts made earlier to calculate the quantity of continental mass before collision did not give way to the possibility of such massive parts of Earth's crust disappearing underground. But an analysis of 20 years' geological data regarding the tectonic plates and new estimates about the possible movement of these plates makes the team think that underground disappearance of massive chunks of Earth's crust is only possible explanation to this mystery.

The team is adamant on the fact that the disappeared part has slid underground because all possible places where the Earth's crust could have gone post the collision can not account for even half of the mass that existed before the Indian and Eurasian continents collided.