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 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.
Read more at University of Texas at Austin
Image: A simplified graphic of the inner Earth as described by the new research. The white and black layers represent a slurry layer containing iron crystals. The iron crystals form in the slurry layer of the outer core (white). These crystals “snow” down to the inner core, where they accumulate and compact into a layer on top of it (black). The compacted layer is thicker on the western hemisphere of the inner core (W) than on the eastern hemisphere (E). CREDIT: University of Texas at Austin
