EGU Media Alert: Hard Core!

We presented our work on the hemispherical structure of the inner core at the European Geosciences Union meeting in Vienna on 6 May 2010. The press office at the meeting released a Media Alert to announce our presentation. Read the Media Alert here.

It reads like the script from a science fiction movie: bubbling rivers of molten iron, a sphere larger than the moon and hotter than our sun, and strange powers that influence the Earth’s magnetic field; and all this closer to us than one might imagine. But now the fiction is becoming science as we gain new insights into the Earth’s core.

This is the work of Dutch geo-scientist Arwen Deuss who has spent years studying the depths of our planet. Not an easy task when you consider the deepest manmade holes go no further than 0,2 percent of the 6,300km it takes to reach the Earth’s centre. So how does the Earth’s core reveal its secrets? The answer lies in mega earthquakes deep inside the bowels of our planet. By listening to the vibrations these quakes create, seismologists are able to paint a picture of what lies beneath our feet. It’s like listening to the tones of a guitar.

The information retrieved in this way helps us to understand the Earth’s magnetic field and its effect on the structure of the inner core. We now know that the compact inner core is comparable to an orange consisting of four segments. Each of these segments contains crystallised iron, but the way these crystals lie in each segment differs and seems to indicate that they are influenced by the Earth’s magnetic field. This information may allow us to create an independent reconstruction of the changes in the Earth’s magnetic field. Hard core answers to hard core questions.