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Top Comments: The Earth's Inner Core Displays Previously Unsuspected Dynamics [1]
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Date: 2025-02-16
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The layers that form the structure of the Earth are displayed in the figure above. We live our lives on the Earth’s crust, but the crust is held up by the solid mantle. Below the mantle is the outer core, which consists mostly of molten iron and nickel, and at the center is the inner core, which has been thought to be a sphere of solid iron. The Earth’s magnetic field, which protects life on Earth from deadly cosmic radiation, is believed to be due to motion in the liquid outer core driven by convectional cooling. A new analysis of decades-worth of seismic data now suggests that the inner core is not a static sphere, but subject to deformation.
The physical activity is best explained as temporal changes in the shape of the inner core. The new study indicates that the near surface of the inner core may undergo viscous deformation, changing its shape and shifting at the inner core's shallow boundary. The clearest cause of the structural change is interaction between the inner and outer core. "The molten outer core is widely known to be turbulent, but its turbulence had not been observed to disrupt its neighbor the inner core on a human timescale," Vidale said. "What we're observing in this study for the first time is likely the outer core disturbing the inner core."
The original goal of the research was to study the decrease in the rate of the inner core’s rotation, but then they noticed evidence that the inner core was not behaving entirely as though it were a solid. It will be interesting to see how this new understanding can explain the thermal and magnetic dynamics of our planet.
Comments are below the fold.
Top Comments (February 15-16, 2024):
From belinda ridgewood:
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From CanadianKitty: HarwellTylerP's comment in the Two new lawsuits.. thread posted by Poetat13thAve. It's excellent (and long). Top Mojo (February 14, 2024):
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Top Mojo (February 15, 2024):
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