Blobs of hot, dense material that curl around Earth’s core are much more widespread than previous research suggests.

A new method of analysing earthquake data has found even more of the previously detected continent-sized zones at the boundary between the planet’s core and mantle.

We still don’t know what these blobs are — they could be magma, molten iron leaking from the core, or something else — but with a more complete, detailed map of where they are, we can better understand the geological processes occurring deep inside Earth’s interior.