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Name: Lily
Status: Student
Grade: 6-8
Location: CO
Country: United States
Date: Winter 09-10
Question:
What happens when a layer of hot magma is lying above a layer of cooler magma deep in the mantle?


Replies:
Lily

I do not know how this can happen because magma heating source is the molten core in the center of the earth. So the deeper down you get, the warmer it should get, not cooler.

If such a situation did exist, this would be a stable condition. In our atmosphere, hot air is less dense than cold air so the hot air would rise and the cold air would fall to the surface. If the hot and cold magma was in one chamber, the hot magma would rise to the top and the cold magma would fall to the bottom. So hot magma over cold magma although highly improbable is a stable condition, unless there are other local conditions that caused this inversion.

Sincere regards,
Mike Stewart


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