We’ve known the basic structure of the Earth since the 1960’s, through seismic studies. But what if the Earth’s subsurface wasn’t as stable as we think…?

By David Sussin

We’ve written a fair amount about odd disturbances in the ground under our feet. Like a recent study suggesting the rock that makes up the Earth’s craton may be sinking into the core.

But this May, a new study revealed a more frightening possibility. The core may be coming to us.

Scientists first noticed something odd in 2003. Levels of certain isotopes in volcanic rock were unusually high. Which meant the rock may have come from deeper in the Earth than we imagined possible.

We’ve known the basic structure of the Earth since the 1960’s, through seismic studies. The layers are probably familiar. There’s the Crust – the surface of the Earth. Below that is the Mantle, a very hot layer of rock that flows and melts and drives the movement of tectonic plates.

Finally, at the center is the Core, which starts 1,800 miles deep, made of tremendously hot liquid surrounding an even hotter, solid inner core.

Thankfully, we don’t have contact with the core itself. The magma from volcanoes is from the mantle, which cools and settles on the ground as lava rock.

In the late 20th century, geologists discovered some of that lava rock contained chemical signatures from the planet’s first days, 4.5 billion years ago. The ancient volcanic rock became a major focus of scientific research. This was unprecedented — we found actual elements from the birth of the planet.

But in 2003, a study showed samples of this ancient rock had concentrations of elements that just shouldn’t be there.

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Researchers from the Scottish Universities Environmental Research Center were studying lava rock on Baffin Island, in Canada. They found a high concentration of the isotope Helium-3, more than had ever been found before. The isotope is extremely rare; it comes from an ancient gas trapped inside the Earth when it was formed. That we find it at all is astounding.

But the fact they found such a high concentration meant these rocks were much older, and travelled on mantle plumes from much deeper in the Earth, where older elements still survive. Maybe from the core itself.

This isn’t supposed to happen. What happens in our planet’s core is supposed to stay there.

See, the core is not just hot, it’s apocalyptically hot. For comparison, human beings die instantly if exposed to 400°F degree heat. At 2000°F degrees, we instantly turn to ash – like Thanos snapping his finger and disintegrating us into black dust.

But the Earth’s core is much worse. The outer core of the Earth is over 7,200°F degrees. And the solid inner core – because it is under so much pressure – reaches 11,000°F degrees. That’s hotter than the sun. And it’s sitting underneath us.

Seems reasonable we don’t want it to start leaking out.

This prompted the recent 2025 study. The team included scientists from Germany, the UK, Colgate in the U.S., and the Smithsonian Institute. The goal? Determine if mantle plumes – the hot, molten rock in volcanic eruptions – were delivering more than just pieces of mantle, but were actually starting to leak elements of the Earth’s core onto the surface.

The team conducted digging expeditions in every major ancient volcanic site in the world, including Hawaii, Germany, South Africa, Costa Rica, La Réunion island in the Indian Ocean, the Galápagos Islands, and Baffin Island in Canada.

They only chose samples with high helium-3 concentration, meaning the rocks were ancient (they’d have to be if they were from the core; no point looking at anything else). To verify if the samples actually broke the barrier between core and mantle and rode volcanic plumes all the way to the surface, well, this required a different marker.

The team focused on ruthenium (Ru). It’s a metal — a rare kind of platinum. The Earth’s crust has a little. But the Earth’s core has a lot. When the Earth was formed, metals sank down and formed the planet’s center. Ruthenium was a big part of this — most of the Earth’s supply is in the core.

Researchers expect to find traces of ruthenium in volcanic rock that comes from the mantle. But the amount they found was much higher. Simply put, the ruthenium values were high enough to be a definitive chemical fingerprint. Combined with analysis of other isotopes, the results were clear. Mantle plumes were leaking material from Earth’s core to the surface.

The discovery will force scientists to rethink how the mantle works and reconsider Earth’s geologic history.

It won’t likely become a crisis… Unless it does.

What if the core – hotter than the surface of the sun and under extreme pressure – suddenly did erupt onto the Earth’s surface?

Well, that wouldn’t be good. The surface of the Earth would be instantly vaporized. And since the outer core generates the Earth’s magnetic field, an eruption like this would trigger pole reversals and loss of magnetic shielding, opening us up to deadly solar radiation.

Then there’s the metals — iron, nickel, platinum — they would blanket the ground killing everything. Metal vapor would block sunlight, putting us into a permanent winter, destroying crops, turning oceans into acid.

This would be a mass extinction event.

Sure, it’s very unlikely. But still — let’s hope geologists figure out how to plug that hole.

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Sources:

https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/sciadv.adr2917