Ancient undersea slab keeps Bermuda afloat, study finds

Scientists used more than two decades of seismic data to map Bermuda’s subsurface and found a light, ~12-mile-thick slab of ancient rock beneath the island. Formed 30–35 million years ago, this slab floats under the crust and keeps Bermuda elevated above the sea without current volcanism, explaining the island’s buoyancy and challenging the classic mantle plume model. The findings tie Bermuda’s uplift to broader mantle convection processes and link to the region’s gravity and magnetic anomalies around the Bermuda Rise.