Massive 'Lava Lamp' Blobs Deep Inside Earth Have Scientists Puzzled

"To me, the big unanswered question is, what is it, and how did it form?" said the paper's lead author Edward Garnero, a professor in the School of Earth and Space Exploration at Arizona State University. The blobs are characterized by slower wave speeds, which suggests they are a different temperature from the rest of the Earth's mantle, the researchers said. Because they're big and characterized by the slower wave speeds, the blobs have been called large low velocity provinces (LLVPs).