The study of Structural Geology and Tectonics concerns the deformation of the Earth's crust and mantle. The scale of observation can be from the submicroscopic level to a mountain chain like the Rocky ...

As well as offering new insights into mantle composition, the drill core gives us other glimpses into Earth's deep geology and the conditions that could have been involved in the origins of life.

This is a 3D view of the top 1,000 kilometers of the earth's mantle beneath the central Pacific showing the relationship between seismically-slow "plumes" and channels imaged in the study.