2023-10-04 13:42:08
The iron atoms that make up the Earth’s solid inner core are tightly pressed together under astronomically high pressure—the highest on the planet. But even in such harsh conditions there is room for maneuver, the researchers found.
Scientists at the University of Texas, together with colleagues from China, studied certain groups of iron atoms in the inner core of the Earth. It turned out that they are able to move quickly, changing their places in a split second. These actions do not affect the basic metallic structure of iron – it is preserved, writes Phys.org.
It was possible to study the deep secrets of the planet using laboratory experiments and theoretical models. They showed that the atoms in the inner core are moving much more and more frequently than previously thought.
“We now know a fundamental mechanism that will help us understand the dynamics and evolution of the Earth’s inner core,” said Yung-Fu Lin, a professor at the University of Texas Jackson School of Geosciences and one of the study’s lead authors.
Since it is impossible to directly sample the Earth’s core, experts recreated it in miniature in the laboratory. To do this, they took a small iron plate and fired a fast moving projectile at it. Temperature, pressure and velocity data collected during the experiment were then fed into a machine-learning computer model of the atoms in the inner core.
According to experts, the iron atoms in the inner core are arranged in a repeating hexagonal configuration. Most computer models depicting the lattice dynamics of iron in the inner core show only a small number of atoms—usually less than a hundred. But using an artificial intelligence algorithm, the researchers were able to significantly expand the atomic environment, creating a “supercell” of regarding 30,000 atoms to more reliably predict the properties of iron.
At the supercell scale, scientists observed how groups of atoms move, changing places, but maintaining the overall hexagonal structure.
The movement of atoms may explain why seismic measurements show that the environment inside the Earth is much softer and more pliable than would be expected at its characteristic pressure.
“Seismologists have discovered that the center of the Earth, called the inner core, is surprisingly soft, regarding the same as soft butter in your kitchen,” says Professor Yung-Fu Lin. “The big discovery we discovered is that hard iron becomes surprisingly soft deep inside the Earth because its atoms can move much more than we ever imagined. This increased movement makes the inner core less rigid and weaker once morest shear forces.”
New understanding of the activity of the inner core at the atomic level will facilitate future research into how energy and heat are generated inside the Earth and how the planet’s magnetic field is formed.
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