What structures would scientist need?

Question

What structures would scientist need to observe to have solid evidence of convection currents?

PLEASE ANSWER I NEED THIS FOR H/W!!

Answer 1

What they do is use magma plumes. When the plates move hot spots stay in one place, and creates a magma plume. If they were not any convection currents the it would be straight up and down or it would move along with the plate. But scientist have found that they don't. In fact the Yellowstone Hot spot plume is moving in the opposite direction, which means it is moving with the convection currents.

Now how did the get the data? Yellowstone National Park is covered with a network seismometers which read earthquakes. After thousands of earthquakes a computer is used to determine different areas of different density. Thus they have been able to map the magma plume in 3-D.

Answer 2

Can you please clear the question up?

Convection currents occur in the Earth's mantle. What happens is that molecules get energy from the Earth's core and rise. As they rise, they lose energy, so they go back towards the core. This creates a cycle. The "waves" are called convection currents. If the heat is consistent in the core (which it is), the cycle is everlasting.