RT Journal Article
T1 Imaging the top of the Earth’s inner core: a present‑day flow model
A1 Tkalčić, Hrvoje
A1 Belonoshko, Anatoly B.
A1 Muir, Jack B.
A1 Mattesini, Maurizio
A1 Moresi, Louis
A1 Waszek, Lauren
AB Despite considerable progress in seismology, mineral physics, geodynamics, paleomagnetism, and mathematical geophysics, Earth’s inner core structure and evolution remain enigmatic. One of the most significant issues is its thermal history and the current thermal state. Several hypotheses involving a thermally-convecting inner core have been proposed: a simple, high-viscosity, translational mode, or a classical, lower-viscosity, plume-style convection. Here, we use state-of-the-art seismic imaging to probe the outermost shell of the inner core for its isotropic compressional speed and compare it with recently developed attenuation maps. The pattern emerging in the resulting tomograms is interpreted with recent data on the viscosity of iron as the inner core surface manifestation of a thermally-driven flow, with a positive correlation among compressional speed and attenuation and temperature. Although the outer-core convection controls the heat flux across the inner core boundary, the internally driven inner-core convection is a plausible model that explains a range of observations for the inner core, including distinct anisotropy in the innermost inner core.
PB Nature
YR 2024
FD 2024-04-18
LK https://hdl.handle.net/20.500.14352/104778
UL https://hdl.handle.net/20.500.14352/104778
LA eng
NO Tkalčić, H., Belonoshko, A.B., Muir, J.B. et al. Imaging the top of the Earth’s inner core: a present-day flow model. Sci Rep 14, 8999 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-024-59520-7
NO Australian Research Council’s
NO Ministerio de Economía y Competitividad (España)
DS Docta Complutense
RD 6 oct 2024