Mount Everest may be the highest peak on Earth, but the BBC reports that there are staggeringly tall mountains deep inside our planet’s interior that dwarf the tallest ranges on the surface — and scientists are puzzling over the origin of these geological marvels. These gigantic buried mountain ranges, called ultra-low velocity zones (ULVZ), are located in the core-mantle boundary inside Earth, around 1,800 miles deep. Some can be “4.5 times the height of Everest” or more than 24 miles in height, researchers told the BBC, and completely hidden until they were revealed by seismic data from earthquakes and even atomic explosions. “We found evidence for ULVZs kind of everywhere,” University of Alabama geologist Samantha Hansen told the BBC, adding that “if it’s big enough, we can see it.” Scientists have speculated that these structures may be remnants of ancient oceanic crusts that were pushed deep into the Earth’s interior, or parts of the mantle that have been superheated by the planet’s searingly hot core… (READ MORE)

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