Dream - Since its discovery in 1948, the gravitational hole at the bottom of the Indian Ocean has remained a perplexing mystery for scientists. Many theories have been proposed by scientists to unravel the mystery of the largest gravitational hole on Earth. Now, a team of researchers from the Indian Institute of Science (IIS) believes they have found the answer to this mystery.

The gravitational hole is centered around 1,200 km southwest of Kanyakumari (Cape Comorin), the southernmost tip of the Indian subcontinent. This circular depression in the ocean has an area of approximately 3 million square kilometers, which is nearly as large as the country of India itself.

As a pioneer in submarine gravimetry, Vening Meinesz spent most of his life exploring the oceans in submarines and research vessels. During his explorations, he discovered several anomalies in the Earth's gravitational field that he associated with tectonic plates. However, he was puzzled because there was nothing larger or stronger than what occurred in the Indian Ocean.

Using a period 140 million years ago as its basis, the IIS team conducted various simulations through a supercomputer by exploring how tectonic and volcanic forces shaped the world we now know. It turns out that the model produced gravity anomalies that are very similar to IOGL, and they all have one similarity. Low-density magma rises to the surface to replace materials with higher density, thus weakening the gravitational force in that area.

However, before that, the Indian Plate passed through the Tethys Plate, so it is called the Tethyan Plate. The fragments of the plate called the Tethyan plate are pushed deeper into the Earth's mantle. They shift some of the material trapped in the 'African blob', which is a continent-sized magma bubble located about 1,000 km below East Africa.