Vast Anomaly in Earth's Gravity Field Signals Shifts Deep Beneath The Surface

In 2007, something strange happened over the eastern Atlantic Ocean. According to satellites orbiting Earth, our planet's gravity field developed a continent-scale anomaly before subsiding to its original state.

The odd event, undetectable to humans on the surface, has only just been discovered in data collected by gravity-monitoring satellites – and the cause was a tremendous redistribution of mass far beneath us, a new analysis suggests.

According to a team led by geophysicist Charlotte Gaugne Gouranton of Paris City University in France, that redistribution was likely the result of a phase change of material some 3,000 kilometers (1,864 miles) down, close to the lower boundary of the mantle.

Related: NASA Is Watching a Huge Anomaly Growing in Earth's Magnetic Field

The anomaly wa