Posted on 01/23/2023 6:05:57 PM PST by DoodleBob
Imagine Earth’s inner core — the dense center of our planet — as a heavy, metal ballerina. This iron-rich dancer is capable of pirouetting at ever-changing speeds.
That core may be on the cusp of a big shift. Seismologists reported Monday in the journal Nature Geoscience that after brief but peculiar pauses, the inner core changes how it spins — relative to the motion of Earth’s surface — perhaps once every few decades. And, right now, one such reversal may be underway.
This may sound like a setup for a world-wrecking, blockbuster movie. But fret not: Precisely nothing apocalyptic will result from this planetary spin cycle, which may have been happening for eons. The researchers who propose this speculative model instead aim to advance understanding of Earth’s innermost sanctum and its relationship with the rest of the world.
The inner core is like “a planet within a planet, so how it moves is obviously very important,” said Xiaodong Song, a seismologist at Peking University in Beijing and an author of the study.
In 1936, Danish seismologist Inge Lehmann discovered that Earth’s liquid outer core envelops a solid metal marble — and it has bamboozled scientists ever since.
“It’s weird that there’s a solid iron ball kind of floating in the middle of the Earth,” said John Vidale, a seismologist at the University of Southern California who was not involved with the study.
Scientists think the core crystallized out of a molten metal soup at some point in Earth’s not-too-distant past, after the planet’s internal inferno had sufficiently cooled.
The inner core cannot be directly sampled, but energetic seismic waves emanating from potent earthquakes and Cold War-era nuclear weapon tests have ventured through the inner core, illuminating some of its properties.
(Excerpt) Read more at seattletimes.com ...
If that happens all the water will fall out.
Magnetic North is always exactly where it should be. (I get your point)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geomagnetic_reversal
I knew it was moving, and read some mention of the runway stuff once, but your picture is worth hundreds of words.
At least I will now maybe remember all my old maps and sextant/compass headings need to have a large correction factor.
Excel here I come
There’s a thing called visous damping. If you spin an uncooked egg it will spin less tha a hard boiled egg. I imagine for a solid core in a molten matrix it would be subject to damping forces if it reversed. where are these forces coming from?
..... So Wouldn't this affect Seismic activity??
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I was thinking some grease to keep it lubed and in proper operating order.
Should we be afraid? asking for a friend.
Will the wave come from the west, East north or south. I want to see it before it hits me.
So, like Y2k, we should fill our bathtubs so we have enough to get through?
sounds like a giant gyroscope.
1000 mph winds and water at the equator. At 45 degrees north and south at 500 mph, and at the poles, zero. IF it were to suddenly stop, which would need an equal and opposite force, which would likely blow the whole thing to smithereens.
It’ll probably be OK as long as you don’t use that 1,000mph water LoL
What could possibly cause such an enormous mass to slow down and reverse direction? Where do the forces to do that originate? What happens to the huge amount of energy liberated by slowing down and stopping the core?
That sounds preposterous.
The world is just going too fast for me these days! :O
“..and I feel fine.”
Yes! We’re all gonna die....again.
Maybe that is why they can’t find snow crab in Alaska.
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