Earth's interior core is growing in a lopsided appearance. Researchers from the University of California Berkeley discovered that the planet's solid inner core is growing faster compared to the outer core. Indonesia's Banda Sea is the region where seismologists have found the core to be rapidly growing.


Phenomena in the Earth's Core

The outer core under Indonesia is eliminating heat from the inner core faster than the normal rate compared to the opposite side of the core which is under Brazilian territory. The unknown activity causes the irons in the inner core to be crystalized quicker and leads to disrupt the natural growth of the core's radius by 1 millimeter each year.

Seismology experts aim to find the solution as to why the seismic waves, or the energy waves exerted by the sudden breaking of rocks within the planet, are traveling faster from north to south compared to an east to west direction. The answer is possibly related to the young age of the inner core, as the heat that boils the core in Earth's early years is a product of elements separating from iron materials, and not from the present-day crystallization of iron.

These findings have serious implications on the planet's magnetic field. Convection occurring in the outer core from the exothermic or release of heat radiating from the planet's inner core is the driving force that generates the Earth's magnetic field. The field protects the planet from harmful particles from the Sun and the universe.

Barbara Romanowicz, the study co-author and professor at UC Berkely, says that the Earth's inner core age, roughly between half a billion to 1.5 billion years of age, can help researchers in the debate regarding how the planet's magnetic field was generated before the existence of its solid inner core.

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Freezing Iron Lattice in the Earth's Core

The asymmetric growth of the planet's inner core explains an age-old mystery regarding the crystallized iron in the planet's core that seems to be aligned along the rational axis of Earth, leaning more in the west than in the east.

Evidence of the alignment stems from measurements of the seismic wave's travel time from earthquakes through the inner core. Seismic waves run faster in directions of the north-south rotational axis along with the equation, the asymmetry attributed by geologists to the frozen iron lattice along with the Earth's core, reports SciTechDaily.

The question now is how the solid crystalline iron lattice orientation prefers one direction.

A study published in the journal Natural Geoscience, entitled "Dynamic history of the inner core constrained by seismic anisotropy", attempted to answer the question. The study developed a computer model of crystalline growth in the Earth's inner core which incorporated geodynamic growth models of mineral physics of iron at high temperatures and pressure.

The model showed that the inner core is asymmetric wherein the wet sides of the core look different from its east side to the center, not just at its top as earlier suggested. The only explanation, according to the study, is that one side of the frozen solid iron lattice in the Earth's core is growing faster than the other.

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