Whether it is your motorcycle or a lawn fork which you forgot to position away, maximum people are acquainted with the fast rusting that happens whilst iron-containing objects are exposed to the elements.

But it isn’t just iron unnoticed inside the rain that is inclined: studies suggests Earth’s biggest deposit of iron – its middle – may also be going rusty.

Sitting 1,800 miles (2,900km) under Earth’s surface, it have been assumed the high-strain environment and paucity of water-bearing minerals kept the molten outer middle safe from the outcomes of rust.

But latest experiments have proven that rust can be solid at high pressures, and will plausibly be formed at locations wherein water-rich slabs of Earth’s crust have sunk to the center-mantle boundary.

And if the middle does get spots of rust this can explain the slower seismic waves determined in some regions of the decrease mantle, which include deep underneath northern Mexico, wherein a bit of crust from North and Central America is thought to have landed approximately 200m years ago.

Now scientists are speculating that a number of those hundreds of rust would possibly from time to time hitch a lift back to the floor thru a mantle plume, presenting a clean explanation for how Earth’s surroundings unexpectedly have become oxygen-rich approximately 2.5bn years in the past.