Earth's Core Is Leaking? Why Experts Think So

Our planet Earth's core is leaking. Experts were convinced this was due to the concentrations of a helium isotope found in Arctic rocks.

Why Experts Think Earth's Core Leaking?

The most convincing proof of a gradual leak in our planet's core may be the record levels of a helium isotope found inside 62 million-year-old Arctic rocks.

A group of geochemists from the California Institute of Technology and Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution are now more confident than ever that helium trapped in the core as our planet was forming is making its way to the surface. This certainty is based on the findings of an earlier investigation of ancient lava flows.

The kind of element that doesn't easily make friends is helium. Nothing can prevent the gas from escaping from exposed rocks into the atmosphere and floating off into space because it is so light and non-reactive.

As a result, helium is a remarkably scarce substance on Earth's surface. One of the biggest questions in geology is how much of the element is still buried beneath our feet.

Most of the helium Earth inhaled as an infant should have been burped away after approximately 4.6 billion years of spouting lava. Therefore, any traces of the gas identified in relatively recent delivery of volcanic rock should have come from reserves that are slowly leaking or from areas of the mantle that have not yet released their helium.

On Canada's Baffin Island, basaltic lavas have some of the greatest ratios of helium 3 (3He) to helium 4, a slightly heavier isotope. According to geologists, geologists say a mix like that suggests deeper, more ancient roots for the gas rather than atmospheric contamination.

In addition, lavas recovered from Iceland showed this peculiar concentration of 3He on a region of crust assumed to be above its unique conveyor belt of mantle activity.

Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution geochemist Forrest Horton, who uncovered helium isotope ratios of up to 50 times that of the atmospheric levels in a sample collected from Baffins' lava fields, and his team speculated that both hotspots might have gotten their helium from an ancient deposit close to the mantle, without excluding the chance of coincidence.

The scientists could eliminate variables that would have changed the helium's identity after the eruption by additionally considering ratios of other isotopes, such as strontium and neodymium. This strengthened the case for the gas's peculiar origins.

Another indicator of the conditions present when Earth was being put together billions of years ago is the ratio of the isotopes of the noble gas neon, which likewise matches those conditions. The ratio points to a vault time has all but forgotten.

It's not as crazy as it initially appears to be to follow the neon and helium back to the core. Simulations of the thermodynamics, pressures, and composition of our planet's core indicate that noble gas deposits may have been shielded. At the same time, Earth grew, only to gradually seep into the mantle around it.

What Is Helium and Is Earth Running Out of It?

Helium is a chemical substance. It's a noble gas of Group 18 of the periodic table and the second-lightest element.

Helium is an odorless, tasteless gas melts at 268.9 °C (452 °F). It has lower freezing and boiling points than any other known substance. Helium is the only element that cannot solidify through sufficient cooling at standard atmospheric pressure.

Helium is the second most abundant element in the universe, next to hydrogen. But Earth is running out of it.

That is because helium is a nonrenewable resource on the planet. It is generated deep underground through the natural radioactive decay of elements such as uranium and thorium. Chemist Sophia Hayes said it would take many millennia to make the helium that's present on Earth.