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The Globe inside Our Planet

Earth’s inner core is turning out to be an alien world

Roughly the size of the moon, the inner core spins measurably faster than the rest of the planet and its hemispheres appear dissimilar.

 

References:

Buffett, B., and K. Creager. 1998. Rotation and deformation of the inner core. Meeting of the American Geophysical Union. May. Boston.

Creager, K.C. 1998. Review of elastic properties and super-rotation of the inner core. Meeting of the American Geophysical Union. May. Boston.

Deuss, A. . . . J. Trampert. 1998. Observations of inner-core shear waves. Meeting of the American Geophysical Union. May. Boston.

Song, X., and D.V. Helmberger. 1998. Seismological evidence for an inner core transition zone. Meeting of the American Geophysical Union. May. Boston.

Souriau, A. 1998. Is the rotation real? Science 281(July 3):55.

Tanaka, S., and H. Hamaguchi. 1997. Degree one heterogeneity and hemispherical variation of anisotropy in the inner core from PKP(BC)-PKP(DF) times. Journal of Geophysical Research 102(Feb. 10):2925.

 

Further Readings:

Bergman, M.I. 1997. Measurements of electric anisotropy due to solidification texturing and the implications for the Earth’s inner core. Nature 389(Sept. 4):60.

Creager, K.C. 1997. Inner core rotation rate from small-scale heterogeneity and time-varying travel times. Science 278(Nov. 14):1284.

Monastersky, R. 1996. Core concerns. Science News 150(Oct. 19):250.

______. 1996. Putting a new spin on Earth’s core. Science News 150(July 20):36

Sources:

Michael I. Bergman
Simon's Rock College
Physics Department
Great Barrington, MA 01230

Bruce Buffett
University of British Columbia
Department of Earth and Ocean Sciences
Vancouver, British Columbia V6T 1Z4
Canada

Kenneth C. Creager
University of Washington
Department of Geophysics
Box 351650
Seattle, WA 98195

Paul G. Richards
Columbia University
Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory
Palisades, NY 10964

Xiaodong Song
Columbia University
Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory
Palisades, NY 10964

Annie Souriau
Observatoire Midi-Pyrénées
CNRS/UMR5562
31400 Toulouse
France

Jeannot Trampert
Utrecht University
Department of Geophysics
P.O. Box 80021
3508 TA Utrecht
Netherlands

 

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