Earth’s core
Iron alloys of volatile elements in the deep Earth’s interior
Many volatile elements are depleted in the bulk silicate Earth. Here, the authors found that these volatile elements tend to react with Fe under pressure and may be sequestered within Earth’s core by forming substitutional Fe alloys.
- Yifan Tian
- Peiyu Zhang
- Hanyu Liu
[Small-scale l…
Earth’s core
Iron alloys of volatile elements in the deep Earth’s interior
Many volatile elements are depleted in the bulk silicate Earth. Here, the authors found that these volatile elements tend to react with Fe under pressure and may be sequestered within Earth’s core by forming substitutional Fe alloys.
- Yifan Tian
- Peiyu Zhang
- Hanyu Liu
Small-scale layered structures at the inner core boundary
Seismologists discover locally laminated complex ICB structure beneath Asia with new dataset of pre-critical PKiKP waveforms, which might be explained by either a kilometer thick mushy zone, or the localized coexistence of bcc and hcp iron phase.
- Baolong Zhang
- Sidao Ni
- Zhongqing Wu
Tilted transverse isotropy in Earth’s inner core
A seismic tomographic model shows that the directional dependence of the travel time of seismic waves through Earth’s inner core can be explained by a spatially varying orientation of the transverse isotropy symmetry axis, which is simpler than other proposed structures.
- Hen Brett
- Jeroen Tromp
- Arwen Deuss
The core-mantle boundary
Primordial neon and the deep mantle origin of kimberlites
Some diamondiferous kimberlite lavas can originate from ancient domains located at Earth’s core-mantle boundary, according to analyses of noble gas geochemistry of magmatic fluids trapped inside kimberlite hosted olivines.
- Andrea Giuliani
- Mark D. Kurz
- D. Graham Pearson
Deep mantle water prefers slabs
The fate of water carried by subducted slabs to the deep Earth remains unclear. Experiments suggest that water is unlikely to escape the slabs when they reach the core–mantle boundary despite high pressures and temperatures.
- Frédéric Deschamps
Quantum critical phase of FeO spans conditions of Earth’s lower mantle
Large-scale eDMFT computation reveals that FeO undergoes a gradual orbitally selective insulator-metal transition across the extreme conditions of Earth’s interior, with implications for compositions and conductivity of the core-mantle boundary region.
- Wai-Ga D. Ho
- Peng Zhang
- Vasilije V. Dobrosavljevic
Ultra-low velocity zones
The emerging picture of a complex core-mantle boundary
Recent seismological studies challenge the traditional view that the interface between the core and mantle is a straightforward discontinuity. As seismology is pushed to its observational limits, a complex - potentially compositionally layered - region between the core and mantle is emerging.
- Stuart Russell
- Jessica C. E. Irving
- Sanne Cottaar
Ultralow velocity zones in the deep Earth
Nature Geoscience spoke with Samantha Hansen, a geophysicist at the University of Alabama and Sebastian Rost, a global seismologist at the University of Leeds about the ultralow velocity zones in the lowermost mantle.
- Alireza Bahadori
Further reading
ArticleOpen Access12 Jun 2024 Nature
Article27 Mar 2024 Nature
Highest terrestrial 3He/4He credibly from the core
Olivines from Baffin Island lavas have the highest magmatic 3He/4He ratio measured so far in terrestrial igneous rocks, indicating that the helium in these lavas might derive from Earth’s core.
- F. Horton
- P. D. Asimow
- X. M. Boyes
Article18 Oct 2023 Nature
Gyres, jets and waves in the Earth’s core
Gyres, jets and waves are thought to have an important role in Earth’s core dynamics. This Review explores these core processes, based on satellite observations and numerical simulations, and discusses the implications for deep-Earth coupling and forecasting geomagnetic field changes.
- Christopher C. Finlay
- Nicolas Gillet
- Dominique Jault
Article15 Feb 2023 Nature
Sustaining Earth’s magnetic dynamo
The mechanisms that sustain Earth’s long-lived geodynamo remain under scrutiny. This Review assesses the potential candidates—convection, precession and tides—revealing that convection, possibly helped by the exsolution of light elements, is the most likely scenario.
- Maylis Landeau
- Alexandre Fournier
- Nathanaël Schaeffer
Light elements in the Earth’s core
Although the presence of ‘light’ elements (such as S, Si, O, C and H) can explain the core’s density deficit, the exact composition of the Earth’s core remains unknown. This Review explores the likely range of outer and inner core compositions and their implications.
- Kei Hirose
- Bernard Wood
- Lidunka Vočadlo