| Title | Scientists Find Iron 'Snow' in Earth's Core | |
| Date | Monday December 23 2019, @10:03AM | |
| Author | Fnord666 | |
| Topic | ||
| from the winter-wonderland dept. | ||
Arthur T Knackerbracket has found the following story:
The Earth's inner core is hot, under immense pressure and snow-capped, according to new research that could help scientists better understand forces that affect the entire planet.
The snow is made of tiny particles of iron -- much heavier than any snowflake on Earth's surface -- that fall from the molten outer core and pile on top of the inner core, creating piles up to 200 miles thick that cover the inner core.
The image may sound like an alien winter wonderland. But the scientists who led the research said it is akin to how rocks form inside volcanoes.
"The Earth's metallic core works like a magma chamber that we know better of in the crust," said Jung-Fu Lin, a professor in the Jackson School of Geosciences at The University of Texas at Austin and a co-author of the study.
The study is available online and will be published in the print edition of the journal JGR Solid Earth on December 23.
Journal Reference:
Youjun Zhang, Peter Nelson, Nick Dygert, Jung‐Fu Lin. Fe Alloy Slurry and a Compacting Cumulate Pile Across Earth's Inner‐Core Boundary. Journal of Geophysical Research: Solid Earth, 2019; DOI: 10.1029/2019JB017792
| Links |
printed from SoylentNews, Scientists Find Iron 'Snow' in Earth's Core on 2023-07-07 04:08:17