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Here’s how olivine may trigger deep earthquakes

The mineral may shake things up by changing its identity at high pressure and temperature

a rock that contains the yellow-green mineral olivine

The transformation of olivine (the yellow-green mineral seen in this rock) into wadsleyite hundreds of kilometers underground may set off the deepest earthquakes ever recorded.

Joel Papalini/iStock/Getty Images Plus

By Nikk Ogasa

- More than 2 years ago

Cocooned within the bowels of the Earth, one mineral’s metamorphosis into another may trigger some of the deepest earthquakes ever detected.