Researchers from the Chinese Academy of Sciences conducted research on the possibility that the Earth’s deep core is more complicated than previously thought. The model reveals it is a totally stiff body in all directions. It seems to be a superionic form of matter, which is a form of matter that exists between the states of solid and liquid.
Because we are unable to dig a well into the Earth’s core and see what is truly there, researchers are researching the Earth’s deep core mostly via the use of seismic waves. Vibrations caused by earthquakes travel through various materials at varying speeds, and the understanding of these variations is important.
Each layers’ composition may be revealed by examining the layers’ structure.
For decades, scientists have known that a certain sort of seismic vibration – also known as the shear wave – may cause earthquakes. This shows that the core consists of a solid structure. If, on the other hand, the waves flow through it more gently than they would through a sphere of hard iron, that is in fact softer by comparison.
Research results
In recent research, scientists performed temperature and pressure calculations near the heart of the Earth in order to better comprehend what additional sorts of stuff may be present in the region. Furthermore, it was discovered that some iron alloys may produce a superionic state. The scientists also computed the speed at which shear waves should travel through the superionic alloys, and indeed the findings of their calculations were in agreement with the conclusions of their observations.
During the formation of a solid lattice in a superionic iron alloy, iron atoms are those that keep the material in place while increasingly light elements permeate the lattice, almost like a liquid. The model, which took into consideration the circumstances in the Earth’s core, revealed that lighter elements may include hydrogen, oxygen, and carbon.
Chinese scientists, on the other hand, believe their concept is not the sole explanation for the structural characteristics of the Earth’s deep core. There is, for example, the belief that “iron snow” descending from the outside core to the interior core causes a shear wave to move at a slower rate than usual.
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