Summary: Host Jorge Salazar interviews scientists Min Chen of Rice University and Jeroen Tromp of Princeton University. An international science team reported a discovery of gigantic rock structures hidden deep under East Asia, centered on the Tibetan Plateau. Scientists used supercomputers to process earthquake data and make images in 3-D down to depths of about 900 kilometers, or about 560 miles below ground. Scientists from China, Canada, and the U.S. worked together to publish their results March of 2015 in the American Geophysical Union Journal of Geophysical Research, Solid Earth. The study area is a hotspot for earthquakes. And it's surrounded by networks of seismographic stations, 1869 stations in all. That's where scientists got their data to take cat scans of the Earth using the supercomputer model they developed. The science team says their research could potentially help discover hidden pockets of hydrocarbon resources like oil and gas. More broadly they say their work will help explore the Earth hidden miles under East Asia and elsewhere.
