The hidden chemistry of the land cover reveals how it is frozen

In a study by researchers from the University of Oxford, the University of Leeds, and the University College London, showing how it was able to curb millions of years ago, a new obstacle to the chemistry of Earth has been identified. Has appeared in the study Nature communications.

Researchers showed that it would mainly need to make 3.8 % carbon to start crying. The result indicates that carbon can be more abundant in the center of the earth than the previous thinking, and that this element may have played a key role in how it was frozen, offers a rare glimpse in the process of our planet’s heart.

The inner part of the Earth, in the middle of our planet, is slowly growing with solid iron moss, cooling and freezing the molten outer core around it. But this process has been a debate among scientists for decades.

The internal basic formation is not just to determine when the cover is cooled to its feathers, but instead of the process of crystalization, which depends on its exact chemical composition. Like water droplets in the clouds, which can cool at -30 ° C before the formation of the hail, it should have a superstar before freezing the molten iron (cool down its melting location).

Previous calculations have suggested that if it is made of pure iron, 800-1,000 ° C will be required to start freezing the core.

However, if the basic degree is overcome, researchers have shown that the internal core will develop extensively, and the earth’s magnetic field will fail. But during the history of our planet, none of these results have come. Instead, scientists believe that in the past, the basic could have been more than 250 ° C below its melting location.

The purpose of this new research is to understand how the internal core is present in the past with such limited super cooling. Without direct access to the deep entry of the earth, the research team needed to rely on computer simulation of the frozen process.

They looked at the presence of other elements, especially silicon, sulfur, oxygen and carbon and how they can affect the frozen process.

“Each of these elements is excessively in the curtains,” said Andrew Walker, co -authors of the co -authors’ Associate Professor Andrew Walker (Oxford University).

“As a result, this may explain why we have a relatively slightly solid internal cover with super cooling in this depth. The presence of one or more elements of these or more can also argue as to why this cover is less dense than pure iron, which is an important observation of the earthquake.”

Using a nuclear scale of approximately 100,000 atoms at the interior core and under pressure, the research team discovered how many times the small crystal -like clusters of liquid atoms are made. These “nuclear” events are the first step towards freezing.

What they found was amazing: silicon and sulfur, elements often assume that they are basically, in fact slowing down the process. In other words, if these elements were in large quantities in this area of ​​the earth, more super cooling would be needed to start the internal core.

On the other hand, they found that carbon helped accelerate the frozen in imitation.

In the study, researchers experienced how much super cooling would be needed to freeze the internal core if 2.4 % of the cover was made of carbon. The result: about 4420 ° C, is still very high, but is still the closest result of the rule.

But when he increased his results in a case where the core has a mass of 3.8 % carbon, the desired super cooling fell to 266 ° C, which is the only known synthesis that can explain both the nucleus and the observed size of the internal core.

This result indicates that carbon can be more in the basic part of the earth than the previous thinking, and that without this element, a solid internal cover can never be formed.

Experiments also show that the internal basic gym was possible only with the right chemistry, and unlike water, when it becomes a halt, it did “nucleation seeds”, without small particles that help freeze. This is very important, because when examined in the previous imitation, mainly all the candidates of the nuclear seeds melt or dissolve.

“It is surprising to see how the nuclear scale controls the infrastructure and dynamics of our planet,” said Dr. Alfred Wilson (the School of Earth and Environment, the University of Leds). We cannot directly hope that we cannot directly hope that we cannot reach directly and we cannot directly learn that we cannot reach directly and we cannot expect to learn directly that we cannot reach directly and we can never expect that we cannot directly in a region of a region.

Scientists have argued when the internal core began to stabilize for decades, some ancient internal core (with the start of the Jumma two years ago) and others proposed a very young (less than half a billion years). With this new information about the carbon content of the core, we are one step close to limiting its chemistry and physical properties, and that’s why it was developed.