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The Enigma 1,800 Miles Below Us
New York Times ^
| May 28, 2012
| Natalie Angier
Posted on 05/30/2012 9:29:52 AM PDT by JerseyanExile
As if the inside story of our planet werent already the ultimate potboiler, a host of new findings has just turned the heat up past Stygian.
Geologists have long known that Earths core, some 1,800 miles beneath our feet, is a dense, chemically doped ball of iron roughly the size of Mars and every bit as alien. Its a place where pressures bear down with the weight of 3.5 million atmospheres, like 3.5 million skies falling at once on your head, and where temperatures reach 10,000 degrees Fahrenheit as hot as the surface of the Sun. Its a place where the term ironclad agreement has no meaning, since iron cant even agree with itself on what form to take. Its a fluid, its a solid, its twisting and spiraling like liquid confetti.
Now it turns out that existing models of the core, for all their drama, may not be dramatic enough. Reporting recently in the journal Nature, Dario Alfè of University College London and his colleagues presented evidence that iron in the outer layers of the core is frittering away heat through the wasteful process called conduction at two to three times the rate of previous estimates.
The theoretical consequences of this discrepancy are far-reaching. The scientists say something else must be going on in Earths depths to account for the missing thermal energy in their calculations. They and others offer these possibilities:
¶ The core holds a much bigger stash of radioactive material than anyone had suspected, and its decay is giving off heat.
¶ The iron of the innermost core is solidifying at a startlingly fast clip and releasing the latent heat of crystallization in the process.
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
TOPICS: Science
KEYWORDS: catastrophism; climate; earth; earthquake; geology; gps; jmarvinherndon; magneticfield; magnetism; poleshift; science; volcano
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To: JerseyanExile
...where temperatures reach 10,000 degrees Fahrenheit as hot as the surface of the Sun. Since they haven't actually measured this, how do they know?
2
posted on
05/30/2012 9:32:52 AM PDT
by
ShadowAce
(Linux -- The Ultimate Windows Service Pack)
To: JerseyanExile
Stop the World...........I wanna get off;)!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
3
posted on
05/30/2012 9:35:52 AM PDT
by
sodpoodle
To: JerseyanExile
4
posted on
05/30/2012 9:36:52 AM PDT
by
Twotone
(Marte Et Clypeo)
To: JerseyanExile
"Geologists have long known that Earths core, some 1,800 miles beneath our feet, is . . . 10,000 degrees Fahrenheit as hot as the surface of the Sun." But a Nobel Prize winning scientist assured us three years ago that the earth's Interior is 'Extremely Hot, Several Million Degrees'. How did our planet manage to cool so much despite global warming?
5
posted on
05/30/2012 9:39:31 AM PDT
by
Pollster1
(“A boy becomes a man when a man is needed.” - John Steinbeck)
To: ShadowAce
Since they haven't actually measured this, how do they know? Algore told them...
6
posted on
05/30/2012 9:40:44 AM PDT
by
evets
(beer)
To: Pollster1
But a Nobel Prize winning scientist assured us three years ago that the earth's Interior is 'Extremely Hot, Several Million Degrees'. How did our planet manage to cool so much despite global warming?Well, we now have another Winner as our president! This was the moment when the rise of the oceans began to slow and our planet began to heal.
To: JerseyanExile
Everyone into their SUVs...we need to heat this puppy up!
To: JerseyanExile
3.5 million atmospheres, like 3.5 million skies falling at once on your head, Gee thanks, Nat. Us yokels didn't know what the unit known as an atmosphere was. Except your analogy is flawed, since we're talking about mostly static pressure, not dynamic pressure i.e. the kind that would result from motion, falling, a collision, etc.
No wonder the Times' corrections page is so active.
9
posted on
05/30/2012 9:47:00 AM PDT
by
relictele
(We are officially OUT of other people's money!)
To: JerseyanExile; P-Marlowe; Larry Lucido
Balderdash!
The earth is hollow!
Read it here on FR!
Here's what it looks like:
10
posted on
05/30/2012 9:47:13 AM PDT
by
Gamecock
To: evets
In that pic, he looks like he’s half-way morphed into Rodney Dangerfield
11
posted on
05/30/2012 9:47:44 AM PDT
by
NonValueAdded
(Extraneous Wind sends ...)
To: Gamecock
Is that “small entrance” at the bottom of the illustration the hole through which they give the Earth its Enigma?
12
posted on
05/30/2012 9:53:32 AM PDT
by
Nervous Tick
(Trust in God, but row away from the rocks!)
To: Gamecock
OK ... that makes more sense than 0bmamcare, and has vastly more factual basis to support it than does the idea that 0bamacare will make our lives better.
13
posted on
05/30/2012 9:54:28 AM PDT
by
ArrogantBustard
(Western Civilization is Aborting, Buggering, and Contracepting itself out of existence.)
To: Gamecock
Double balderdash! Everyone knows that Pelucidar, where Emperor David Innes rules, lies at the Earths Core:
http://www.pellucidar.org/
14
posted on
05/30/2012 9:55:43 AM PDT
by
bigbob
To: JerseyanExile
The theoretical consequences of this discrepancy are far-reaching. The scientists say something else must be going on in Earths depths to account for the missing thermal energy in their calculations. They and others offer these possibilities:
The other possibility is that their calculations are crap.
15
posted on
05/30/2012 9:57:18 AM PDT
by
aruanan
To: Nervous Tick
Don’t tell Bawney Fwank about that small entrance at the bottom ...
16
posted on
05/30/2012 9:59:18 AM PDT
by
ArrogantBustard
(Western Civilization is Aborting, Buggering, and Contracepting itself out of existence.)
To: JerseyanExile
Where is the, “We’re all gonna die!” cartoon.
Other things are much more important and we maybe able to actually DO something about them.
This is probably balderdash and certainly a waste of time.
Maybe interesting but a waste of time.
17
posted on
05/30/2012 9:59:48 AM PDT
by
Sequoyah101
(You've been screwed by your government.)
To: JerseyanExile
18
posted on
05/30/2012 10:00:02 AM PDT
by
nitzy
( Conservation is a policy of stewardship. Environmentalism is a religion of pagans.)
To: ShadowAce
Why can't they just admit that they just don't know anything for sure and all they can do is make wild guesses . . . I mean . . . theories
19
posted on
05/30/2012 10:09:24 AM PDT
by
fella
("As it was before Noah, so shall it be again.")
To: evets
AlGore, *Why learn anything, they believe any fact I pull out of my ass, life is great, well except for Tipper's alimony*.
20
posted on
05/30/2012 10:09:50 AM PDT
by
The Cajun
(Palin, Free Republic, Mark Levin, Newt......Nuff said.)
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