Mystery: a strange, remarkable earthquake hit Wyoming

June 2015 – GEOLOGY– An earthquake struck Wyoming two years ago that made little sense, scientifically speaking — but experts seem closer to solving the mystery, the BBC reports. Called the Wind River Earthquake, it hit with 4.7magnitude in an area that rarely sees such seismic power. Hardly surprising, since the Wind River area has little tectonic-plate movement that would normally trigger such an earthquake. But a new study in Earth and Planetary Science Letters says the quake may not have originated with tectonic plates grinding against each other at all. The Wind River Earthquake may have started deeper, in what the BBC calls “the Earth’s hotter and more viscous mantle.” Such a quake might be caused by crust falling into the mantle, which lies between the Earth’s higher crust and deeper core.

These deeper quakes remain “a highly controversial topic,” the scientists write, but this one “occurred…