{"id":355908,"date":"2026-02-12T15:40:47","date_gmt":"2026-02-12T10:10:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/?p=355908"},"modified":"2026-02-12T15:40:47","modified_gmt":"2026-02-12T10:10:47","slug":"continental-mantle-earthquakes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/continental-mantle-earthquakes\/","title":{"rendered":"Continental Mantle Earthquakes"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><b>News- <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Stanford researchers created the first global map of continental mantle earthquakes, published on February 5, 2026 in <\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Science<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">.<\/span><\/p>\n<h2>About Continental Mantle Earthquakes<\/h2>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Continental mantle earthquakes are rare earthquakes that occur deep within the Earth\u2019s mantle beneath continents.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><b>Global Distribution:\u00a0<\/b><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><b> <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Although only 459 continental mantle earthquakes have been identified worldwide, they are regionally clustered.\u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> A high concentration is found beneath the <\/span><b>Himalayas in southern Asia <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">and the <\/span><b>Bering Strait between Asia and North America.<\/b><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><b>Key Characteristics of Continental Mantle Earthquakes (CMEs)<\/b><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><b>Origin:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> These earthquakes occur in the mantle, below the Mohorovi\u010di\u0107 discontinuity (Moho), which separates the crust from the mantle.<\/span><\/li>\n<li><b>Depth:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> They can occur more than 80 km below the Mohorovi\u010di\u0107 discontinuity (Moho), which separates the crust from the mantle.<\/span><\/li>\n<li><b>Identification:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> Scientists identify them by comparing Sn waves, which travel through the mantle, and Lg waves, which move through the crust.<\/span><\/li>\n<li><b>Impact:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> They are too deep to cause serious shaking at the surface.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><b>Significance<\/b><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><b>Crust\u2013Mantle Coupling: <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">They show that the crust and mantle behave as a coupled system in collision zones.<\/span><\/li>\n<li><b>Stress and Lithosphere Dynamics:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> They help scientists understand the strength and ductility of the continental lithosphere and show how stress extends below the Moho.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><b>About Mohorovi\u010di\u0107 discontinuity (Moho)<\/b><\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_355909\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-355909\" style=\"width: 408px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\" wp-image-355909\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/Mohorovicic-discontinuity.png?resize=408%2C248&#038;ssl=1\" alt=\"Mohorovi\u010di\u0107 discontinuity\" width=\"408\" height=\"248\" srcset=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/Mohorovicic-discontinuity.png?w=575&amp;ssl=1 575w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/Mohorovicic-discontinuity.png?resize=300%2C183&amp;ssl=1 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 408px) 100vw, 408px\" \/><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-355909\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Source- Wikipedia<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<ul>\n<li><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Mohorovi\u010di\u0107 discontinuity <\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">is <\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">the boundary between Earth&#8217;s <\/span><b>crust<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">and the underlying <\/span><b>mantle<\/b><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">It was identified in <\/span><b>1909<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> by the Croatian seismologist <\/span><b>Andrija Mohorovi\u010di\u0107<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The Moho is defined by a sharp increase in the speed of P-waves (compressional waves), typically jumping from about <\/span><b>6.7\u20137.2 km\/s<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> in the lower crust to about <\/span><b>7.6\u20138.6 km\/s<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> in the upper mantle.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>News- Stanford researchers created the first global map of continental mantle earthquakes, published on February 5, 2026 in Science. About Continental Mantle Earthquakes Continental mantle earthquakes are rare earthquakes that occur deep within the Earth\u2019s mantle beneath continents. Global Distribution:\u00a0 Although only 459 continental mantle earthquakes have been identified worldwide, they are regionally clustered.\u00a0 A&hellip; <a class=\"more-link\" href=\"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/continental-mantle-earthquakes\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">Continental Mantle Earthquakes<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10367,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1566,11209,12039],"tags":[11872],"class_list":["post-355908","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-daily-factly-articles","category-geography-in-news","category-knolls","tag-9pm-daily-factly","entry"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","views":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/355908","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10367"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=355908"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/355908\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=355908"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=355908"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=355908"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}