What is causing the mysterious ‘gravity hole’ in the Indian Ocean?

Source: The post is based on the article “What is causing the mysterious ‘gravity hole’ in the Indian Ocean?” published in Indian Express on 6th July 2023

What is the News?

Scientists have finally found the reason behind the huge gravity hole in the middle of the Indian Ocean.

What is a Gravity Hole?

A gravity hole, also known as a gravitational anomaly, refers to a specific area where the force of gravity is lower than the average on Earth.

Gravity holes happen as the Earth gravitational field is not uniform due to variations in density and mass distribution. 

Gravity Hole in Indian Ocean:

The Indian Ocean is home to one of the giant gravity hole known as the Indian Ocean Geoid Low (IOGL).

It was discovered in 1948 during a ship-based gravity survey by Dutch geophysicist Felix Andries Vening Meinesz.

It is found in a large section of over three million sq. km in the Indian Ocean seafloor, located around 1,200 km southwest of India’s southern tip.

It is estimated to have formed approximately 20 million years ago.

What is the reason behind the Gravity Hole in the Indian Ocean?

The researchers discovered that the possible reason for the gravity hole in the Indian Ocean is the plumes of magma.

This phenomena might have originated 120 million years ago when the supercontinent Gondwana land separated. 

As the Indian plate separated from the African plate, it smashed into the European plate and the ocean called Tethys was squeezed between the continental plates.

Some parts of these plates are still melting back into the deep Earth’s interior and generating low-intensity magma and creating a gravity hole.