INNER CORE
Group 4
INNER CORE
The Earth's inner core is the Earth's innermost part. It
is primarily a solid ball with a radius of about 1,220
kilometers (760 miles), which is about 70% of the
Moon's radius. It is composed of an iron–nickel alloy
and some other elements. The temperature at the
inner core's surface is approximately 5,700 K (5,430
°C) or 9806 °F, which is about the temperature at the
surface of the Sun.
The Earth was discovered to have a solid inner core distinct from
its molten outer core in 1936, by the Danish seismologist Inge
Lehmann, who deduced its presence by studying seismograms
from earthquakes in New Zealand. She observed that the
seismic waves reflect off the boundary of the inner core and can
be detected by sensitive seismographs on the Earth’s surface.
This boundary is known as the Bullen discontinuity, or
sometimes as the Lehmann discontinuity. A few years later, in
1940, it was hypothesized that this inner core was made of solid
iron; its rigidity was confirmed in 1971’s.
Inge Lehmann
History
Based on rates of cooling of the core, it is estimated
that the current solid inner core started solidifying
approximately 0.5 to 2 billion years ago out of a fully
molten core (which formed just after planetary
formation). If true, this would mean that the Earth's solid
inner core is not a primordial feature that was present
during the planet's formation, but a feature younger
than the Earth (the Earth is about 4.5 billion years old).
Composition
Inner core is believed to consist primarily of a nickel-
iron alloy. Pure iron was found to be denser than the
core by approximately 3%, implying the presence of
light elements in the core (e.g. silicon, oxygen, sulfur)
in addition to the probable presence of nickel.
Nickel-iron alloy
Temperature and pressure
The temperature of the inner core can be estimated by
considering both the theoretical and the experimentally
demonstrated constraints on the melting temperature of impure
iron at the pressure which iron is under at the boundary of the
inner core. These considerations suggest that its temperature is
about 5,700 K (5,400 °C; 9,800 °F).
The pressure in the Earth's inner core is slightly higher than it is
at the boundary between the outer and inner cores: it ranges
from about 330 to 360 gigapascals (3,300,000 to 3,600,000 ).
What is a giga pascal?
1 Gigapascal: One gigapascal (GPa) is
equal to exactly one billion pascals. A
pascal (Pa) is the SI unit for pressure
define as one newton per square
meter. 1GPa = 1,000,000,000 Pa.
Dynamics
The Earth's inner core is thought to be slowly growing as the liquid
outer core at the boundary with the inner core cools and solidifies
due to the gradual cooling of the Earth's interior (about 100 degrees
Celsius per billion years). Many scientists had initially expected that
the inner core would be found to be homogeneous, because the
solid inner core was originally formed by a gradual cooling of molten
material, and continues to grow as a result of that same process.
Even though it is growing into liquid, it is solid, due to the very high
pressure that keeps it compacted together even if the temperature is
extremely high.
It was even suggested that Earth's inner core might be a
single crystal of iron. However, this prediction was disproved
by observations indicating that in fact there is a degree of
disorder within the inner core. Seismologists have found that
the inner core is not completely uniform, but instead contains
large-scale structures such that seismic waves pass more
rapidly through some parts of the inner core than through
others. In addition, the properties of the inner core's surface
vary from place to place across distances as small as 1 km.
This variation is surprising, since lateral temperature
variations along the inner-core boundary are known to be
extremely small (this conclusion is confidently constrained by
magnetic field observations). Discoveries in 1994 suggest
that the solid inner core itself is composed of layers,
separated by a transition zone about 250 to 400 km thick. If
the inner core grows by small frozen sediments falling onto its
surface, then some liquid can also be trapped in the pore
spaces and some of this residual fluid may still persist to
some small degree in much of its interior.
Importance of the earth’s
inner core
The core is molten iron the motion of which generates our
magnetic field. Without the magnetic field our atmosphere and
oceans would be blasted away by radiation of charged particles
from the Sun
The heat from the inner core helps maintaining the earths
temperature against an ice cold dead living world.
The molten nickel gives the magnetic field from which it holds
every object downwards.
Inner core facts
• Earth's innermost section is called its inner core, and
is believed to be just as hot as the sun's surface. It was
once believed that the earth's inner core was liquid, but
Inge Lehmann - a seismologist - proved in theory in
1936 that the inner core was solid, and the outer core
was liquid. The inner core is believed to be made up of
an iron-nickel (metal) alloy.
Inner core facts
• The temperature of the inner core is believed to be
approximately 5400 degrees Celsius, or 5700 Kelvin. This
heat is caused by three elements: residual heat from the
formation of the earth, gravitational forces from the moon
and the sun, and and radioactive decay of earth's inner
elements.
• The nickel alloy that makes up the earth's inner core is
referred to as NiFe. Ni represents nickel, and Fe represents
iron.
Inner core facts
• Some believe that the earth's inner core formed between 2
and 4 billion years ago. This theory also states that it was
entirely molten originally, and was not present when the
earth originally formed 4.5 billion years ago.
• The earth's inner core is approximately 1500 miles wide. It
is estimated to be approximately 1,802 miles below the
earth's surface (crust).
Inner core facts
• Although the inner core is made up primarily of nickel and iron, it also
includes elements that are capable of dissolving in iron such as cobalt,
gold, and platinum. These elements are called siderophiles.
Siderophiles is The Goldschmidt classification, developed by Victor
Goldschmidt (1888-1947), is a geochemical classification which groups
the chemical elements within the Earth according to their preferred host
phases it means iron lover. sidreron means iron and phillia means love.
Other examples of the goldschimdt classification are litophile elements
(elements remain or close to the earths surface) chalcophile elements
ore loving elements and atmophile elements such as hydrogens
oxygens etc.
Inner core facts
The inner core makes up approximately
1.7% of earth's total mass, while the outer
core makes up approximately 30.8% of
the earth's total mass.