Unbelievable discovery 118 miles underground: the impact of the so-called “Soviet ecocatastrophe”

Sixty years ago, located in Central Asia, the Aral Sea held more than 240 cubic miles of water. Initially low in salinity, what was once the third-largest lake in the world by area began drying up in the early 1960s. The diversion of water from two of its main tributaries—the Amu Darya and Syr Darya rivers—toward cotton plantations by the Soviet Union marked the beginning of its disappearance.

The desert climate didn’t help. High temperatures accelerated evaporation, but the Aral Sea’s desiccation sped up dramatically in the early 2000s, around the end of the Cold War. As cotton production expanded, more and more water was drawn from the lake and nearby rivers. By 2008, the lake was declared almost completely dry, leaving behind only two small, salty remnants in the basin.

The disaster reached nearly 120 miles beneath the surface

The disappearance of the Aral Sea—on the border between Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan—was an ecological catastrophe that shocked the world, especially during the Cold War. Today, a joint Chinese-American research team led by Teng Wang of Peking University has made a discovery, published in New Scientist, revealing that the human-induced disaster has reached as deep as 118 miles (about 190 km) into the Earth’s crust.

Wang’s team found that the ground beneath the Aral Sea is undergoing a consistent uplift. They also observed deep structural changes and unusual properties in the bedrock beneath the former lake.

Sylvain Barbot, an American member of the team, told New Scientist: “The fact that humans can do something that affects the Earth’s upper mantle is quite remarkable.” Still, the realization that human actions have caused a disruption reaching nearly 120 miles deep continues to astound the research group.

What’s happening beneath the Aral Sea

Between 2016 and 2020, the Chinese-American team confirmed a steady uplift of the bedrock beneath the lake. Before the Aral Sea dried up, the weight of its water had compressed the rock below, forming a depression. As the water evaporated, the rocks began to rebound.

Over the four-year study, the researchers observed that the central part of the Aral basin rose by about 0.28 inches (7 mm) per year, while areas near the former shoreline rose by around 0.2 inches (5 mm) annually. Their findings, published in Nature Geoscience, contrast with the more gradual uplift occurring in parts of Northern Europe.

The uplift in the Aral region is especially dramatic compared to areas once covered by continental glaciers in Scandinavia, which have remained mostly stable. While uplift rates of 0.3 to 0.6 inches (8–16 mm) per year have been recorded in those regions, that process has taken place over more than 10,000 years, whereas the Aral Sea’s changes have occurred in just a couple of decades.

Researchers attribute the rapid rebound of the Aral Sea’s bedrock largely to the unusual weakness of the rock in that area. This is due to surprisingly low levels of viscosity in the rocks located between 80 and 118 miles (130–190 km) beneath the surface.

Scientists discovered that the bedrock beneath the Aral Sea is ten times more elastic than typical rock formations. This means that, despite being solidified, the rocks are not as rigid, allowing them to rise more quickly in response to the loss of pressure.

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