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Earth's Core Spins Faster than Earth

Posted by CowboyNeal on from the round-and-round dept.

Dreamwalkerofyore writes "The New York Times has an article on a recent affirmation that the earth's core rotates faster than the earth proper. From the article: 'Confirming assertions first made in 1996, a team of geophysicists are presenting data in the journal Science today showing that the earth's inner core... spins faster than the rest of the planet. Over a period of 700 to 1,200 years, the inner core appears to make one full extra spin. That extra spin could give scientists information about how the earth generates its magnetic field.'"

4 of 309 comments (clear)

  1. Hmmm... by gowen · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Given that the Earth's rotation is slowing down, isn't it immediately apparent that the liquid core must spin faster than the outside. It's just basic fluid dynamics. If apply a torque to the outside of a fluid filled region, the middle of that region will feel the effect last.

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  2. Will the Earth cease to have magnetic poles? by ReformedExCon · · Score: 5, Interesting

    If the core slows down due to friction with the mantle, will there be an effect on the magnetic field surrounding the Earth? Without the magnetic field, my understanding is that the Van Allen radiation belt will also not exist, and that in turn would expose the Earth to the full-on radiation of the Sun.

    I'm no scientist, of course. But I wonder what the implications of the spinning core means. Also, how long would it take to stop spinning, or to develop a wobble?

    There have been a slew of large earthquakes around the world lately. Could it be related?

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  3. Re:Military applications by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Interesting

    If we could cheaply generate fields that strong, we would not need nuclear power plants, we could generate all the energy we need using induction.

  4. Re:Give my regards to the Earth's core... by aussie_a · · Score: 5, Interesting
    So I'm just wondering: does this delta-omega have anything to do with the fact that the Earth's magnetic field reverses itself every 200,000 years or so?

    Well, according to Wikipedia why the reversal happens isn't well understood, so it very well could be. However there are some hints that this is the case in the Geomagnetic excursion page:
    The dominant theory is that they are an inherent aspect of the dynamo processes that maintain the Earth's magnetic field. In computer simulations, it is observed that magnetic field lines can sometimes become tangled and disorganized through the chaotic motions of liquid metal in the Earth's core
    I'd suggest looking for more authorative sources if you're truly interested.

    Please begin rampant conjecture and wild speculation.

    Don't mind if I do. From Geomagnetic reversal at wikipedia:
    homo erectus and their ancestors certainly survived many previous reversals. There is no uncontested evidence that a magnetic field reversal has ever caused any biological extinctions.
    Makes me wonder how geomagnetic reversals coincide with the speciation and evolution of our ancestors (or any animals). The extra radiation might not have killed them, but it certainly could have mixed things up, create higher then normal mutation rates. The last one was 780,000 years ago. Homo sapiens sapiens hasn't ever existed while there's been a geomagnetic reversal. It could be that by the time we came around, the mutations had died down to a normal rate.