Science:

Rocks Get Super-Heated to 1000C Under New Mountains (BBC)

As mountains are gradually forced up, the rocks deep underneath them can heat up to a roasting 1000C

Deep underneath newly-forming mountains, the rocks can heat up to over 1000C. Geologists have suspected this happens for some time. Now a study of ancient rocks reveals that they really were once heated to these unimaginable temperatures.

Mountains form when rocks are forced upwards. But before this happens, the rocks that will make up the mountains first melt, over many millions of years.

In effect, these forming mountains have roots, "rather like icebergs floating in the sea", says Simon Redfern at the University of Cambridge in the UK, who was not involved in the new study. "If you build up a mountain it needs to have an equivalent amount of mountain root at its base."

Now a new study, published in Earth and Planetary Science Letters, gives the strongest evidence yet that the temperature in these deep parts of the Earth's crust can exceed 1000C.

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