Earth's Core Spins Faster than Earth

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.'"

Comments

Give my regards to the Earth's core...

[kzinti]

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? Please begin rampant conjecture and wild speculation. Extra credit to anyone who can credibly bring Roswell or right-wing conspiracies into the discussion. Fnord.

Re:Give my regards to the Earth's core...

[aussie_a]

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.

Re:Give my regards to the Earth's core...

[deop4s]

Probably something - what will be interesting is if someone can figure out not only the speed, but also the direction of the spin. There's no guarantee that the inner core is actually spinning along the same axis as the mantle/crust. Seems possible that an offset of a few minutes between the axes of rotation might explain why the magnetic poles are not exactly matched with the rotation axis of the earth.

Re:Give my regards to the Earth's core...

[maxwell demon]

Ok, let's start the pseudo-science and conspiracy theory generator :-)

Well, you know, in Rosswell there's a dark energy vortex, which extents to the core. This BTW is why the alien space ship crashed; it's quite unusual to have dark energy vortices on earth-like planets (it's not that unusual on gas planets, for example the Great Red Spot is in reality the result of a - much bigger - dark energy vortex [don't believe the scientist telling you it's just a big storm!]), therefore the aliens were not prepared to it. Indeed Earth is quite special to have a particularly rich dark energy vortex structure (a rather big one is e.g. at the Bermuda triangle, although that one reaches a few hundred kilometers into the air, instead going down), which is also the cause of earth rays (water just acts as focus lense for them).

Now the delta-omega in conjunction with the other periodic effects from sun and moon causes certain structures of the core to coincide with the vortex axis about every 200,000 years. This results in a temporary slowdown of the core (the rotation energy gets transferred into the vortex during that time, and then back into the core to let it spin again). This slowdown lets the magnetic field vanish. Now the time of this breakdown happens to coincide with half a period of the vortex' intrinsic oszillation, therefore when the magnetic field is re-built, it points into the opposite direction.

Ok, where do the right-wing conspiracies come in? Well, the knowledge of this is actually held back by the right-wing politicians because the dark energy vortex interacts with the carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. Now the increasing level of CO2 might cause the vortex to move, and secret calculations show that in doing so it would permanently kill the rotation of the core and therefore destroy the magnetic field of the Earth. In order to avoid any danger to the oil sales, right-wing politicians actively suppress this knowled... wait, why are those black helicopters in front of my ... NO CARRIER

Re:Give my regards to the Earth's core...

[Smidge204]

Dear kzinti;

Current scientific theories on this subject are, at best, incomplete. I would like to offer an equally plausible alternative theory; Intelligent Spinning.

The Intelligent Spinner carefully regulates the speed at which the Earth's inner core rotates relative to the crust, thus regulating with great accuracy the strength and shape of the Earth's protective magnetic shield. Since this shield is so vital to life on this planet, it is inconceivable that it exists merely by chance. Therefore, we can conclude that the Intelligent Spinner was put in place by the Intelligent Designer, as one of the many mechanisms to protect His creation.

Extrapolating from this scenario, we arrive at the conclusion that the magnetic field reversal is all part of the Intelligent Designer's plan. Indeed, so-called "scientific" estimates have failed to predict another reversal. The Science-agenda advocates would have you believe that such reversals occur every 200,000 years, however in the same breath they also claim it has been over 780,000 years since the previous one. It is apparent that these scientists are simply making excuses for their flawed theories. Indeed, as we all know the Earth is only about 6,000 years old so the very notion of a 200,000 year cycle is absurd! My Intelligent Spinner theory predicts that the magnetic poles has (and will) weaken and eventually flip whenever the Intelligent Designer deems the time is right.

As you can see, my alternative theory explains the observed natural phenomena just as well as -- indeed, better than -- the current "scientific" theories of geology. I therefore assert that my theory is at least a viable alternative and feel that equal time should be given to its teaching in the classroom.

Thank you for your time;
=Smidge=

Re:Give my regards to the Earth's core...

[Mudcathi]

Makes me wonder how geomagnetic reversals coincide with the speciation and evolution of our ancestors (or any animals).

I imagine that the mix up caused confused ducks to fly to Alaska for the winter, instead of Florida... and so if a reversal were to occur today, with the little magnetic compasses in our grandparent's pristine 1972 Chevy Impalas pointing 180 degrees in the wrong direction, we'll find their frozen carcasses somewhere in the Yukon around late November, surrounded by baffled ducks.

Re:Give my regards to the Earth's core...

[Beale]

This is just one example of the work of the Flying Spaghetti Monster in his Harlem Globetrotter aspect.

May we be forever touched by his noodly appendage.

Re:Give my regards to the Earth's core...

[Smidge204]

(Score:5, Insightful)

*facepalms* Ah, Merton, you tricky bastard!

=Smidge=

Re:Give my regards to the Earth's core...

[Smidge204]

May we be forever touched by his noodly appendage.

RAmen.

=Smidge=

Re:Give my regards to the Earth's core...

[Thrymm]

The Earth is also cooling, albeit at a very slow rate correct? Thus the Inner Core should be growing larger as the molten core cools one would think.. ie: Mars with only a solid core.

One other question I do have, is the core all iron? What about the heavier metallic elements such as Uranium which is decaying, etc....

Re:Give my regards to the Earth's core...

[Ungrounded Lightning]

what will be interesting is if someone can figure out not only the speed, but also the direction of the spin. There's no guarantee that the inner core is actually spinning along the same axis as the mantle/crust.

Sure there is: Fluid Friction. Only convection (like atmospheric or oceanic weather phenomena but at geologic time scales) and forces from the dynamo are likely to have any non-straightforward effect, and those will be minor deltas.

The basic mechanism is obvious: The planet is spinning. The core is molten while the crust is essentially solid. There is a massive moon, orbiting above synchronous orbit and creating tidal drag. The tidal drag slows the rotation and raises the moon's orbit. The tidal braking force is strongest at or near the surface of the planet and vanishes at the center.

With braking at the outer layers the core spins a tad faster, but in the same direction and (with the braking very small compared to the fluid fricton) ALMOST exactly at the same rate - the difference is about one turn in 300,000 (assuming the middle of the article's range).

Re:Give my regards to the Earth's core...

[fatted]

Problem solved.
http://www.ucd.ie/ucdnews/apr00/mystery.htm

or for people who like equations:

http://www.copernicus.org/online-papers/EGS/NPG/20 02/3/npg-9-373.pdf

Easily Explained

[Ann Elk]

The core spins faster because the bodies of the US founding fathers are spinning in their graves at such high RPM.

Re:Easily Explained

[Junior J. Junior III]

No, it's clearly intelligent spin. There must be some agent of unimaginable power who is actively pushing the core to faster velocities. We cannot know why someone would want to do this, but as they must be very intelligent to figure out a way to accomplish this, we must conclude that they have their reasons.

Now, the real question in my mind, is the intelligent spinner Vulcan/Hephaestus, YHWH, or the Flying Spaghetti Monster?

My theory is that it's the FSM. While Vulcan and Hephaestus were gods of the earth and of volcanoes, they were only minor characters in the Olympian pantheon, and on top of that, cripples. Clearly they are incapable of pushing the Earth's core at all. YHWH is too busy turning homosexuals into pillars of salt to be bothered with core spinning. Therefore, only a noodley appendage can spin the Earth's Core at such a velocity.

Re: Easily Explained

[Black Parrot]

> No, it's clearly intelligent spin.

FYI, Intelligent Spin (notice the capitalization, please!) is just a special case of Intelligent Falling.

Shoulders of giants, kind of thing.

Military applications

[Kawahee]

I don't see how this could be all that technologically useful for consumers, but for the military, I'd like to see little plastic spheres that, when twisted, generate their own little magnetic fields without any other materials than what the enemy would expect to be naturally residing in an area. Drop a few around a desert or combat area, and watch their compasses/electrical equipment go out.

Re:Military applications

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

Re:Military applications

[bmalia]

Bah.. Who needs the whole day/night thing anyway.

Complete?

[Boronx]

Whoah, it looks like it's going to complete one full spin in the next decade, that's going to make Y2K look like a walk in the park.

Re:Complete?

[neverutterwhen]

Y2K was a walk in the park.

Re:Complete?

[Himring]

Y2K was a walk in the park.

You apparently missed Pat Robertson's leadups....

Hmmm...

[gowen]

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.

Re: Hmmm...

[Black Parrot]

> 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.

At noon let's all face west and run five miles real fast, to see if we can get the shell back up to speed.

Re:Hmmm...

[Thagg]

And what's potentially going to be *really* interesting is that earth is going to slow down fairly dramatically over the next few hundred years, according to US scientists. Note the article a few days ago in Slashdot about the US government lobbying to get rid of the leap second, and just have a leap hour every 500 or 600 years. If you do the (very simple) math, you can see that these scientists anticipate the earth rotation rate slowing down by five or six seconds a year over that time.

My guess is that this is due to global warming, and the earth (particularly the oceans) getting farther from the spin axis -- both by just expansion due to increased temperature and from land-locked ice melting into the ocean (especially from Greenland.)

So, whatever effects that are caused by the differential change in rotation, will be exacerbated at least another 20% or so.

Oh, and the earth's inner core (the part that the FA describes as rotating faster) is solid, not liquid. The solid inner core is lubricated by several hundred miles of liquid outer core from the rest of the planet.

Thad Beier

Re: Hmmm...

[NatasRevol]

I'm on the north pole, you insensitive clod!

Can I just spin real fast?

Re:Hmmm...

[multi io]

If you have to introduce 1 leap hour or 3600 leap seconds in 600 years, all that means is that the *average* length of the mean solar day during that time was 1hour/600years=~2e-7 longer than 86400 sec. How much of that elongation was actually caused by the earths's rotation slowing down, and how much was caused by, say, the fact that the rotation was a bit too slow from the start, is a different question.

Now, AFAIK it happens to be the case that the definition of the second in the 1960s was indeed a bit too short with respect to the length of the mean solar day even back then, so the fact that the earth's rotation was too slow from the start will be the dominating contributor to the introduction of leap seconds for the next few centuries at least.

So the real question is...

[MosesJones]

With this different rotation at the core, what type of Baseball pitch is the earth? And was it thrown left or right handed?

Personally I think we've been thrown a curve-ball.

Sorry couldn't resist.

If the core ever stops spinning

[strannik]

We'll need to do core dump analysis.

Will the Earth cease to have magnetic poles?

[ReformedExCon]

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?

Re:Will the Earth cease to have magnetic poles?

[Aerion]

I understand that there was a well-done documentary about this subject made a few years ago. You should check it out.

Karma whore 101

[aussie_a]

1. Make reference to really bad movie.
2. Mention title of movie for the hard of hearing.
3. Create a pretend lesson learnt from the really bad movie.
4. In a new post in a duplicate account, make reference to how pathetic the original post is.
5. ????
6. Profit^H^H^H^H Karma?

Re:Karma whore 101

[maxwell demon]

No, ^H deletes from back, and he had an extra space after the ^Hs therefore:

6. Pr Karma?

Re:first post

[AliasTheRoot]

dragging on what? the vacuum surrounding the earth?

Re:Earth Core Spinning 101

[_Shorty-dammit]

The Core: 2003 The article: "assertions first made in 1996" Paying attention: not you

This theory should be taught in schools....

[killeena]

alongside the "Spinning Core" theory. This theory is just as valid, and children need to be taught different points of view.

Sorry, had to do it.

And on the sixth day..

[Anonymous Coward]

God overclocked the core, and saw that it was good.

Has a cure

[La Gris]

Everyone head to the east with their car and go as fast as possible.

And everyone around the world, press the breaks all at once, while riding to the east.

That may be enough to accelerate the Earth's rotation :)

It is not so simple.

[leuk_he]

And what is causing the spin-down? Is it friction against empty space?
If it is gravitation from other bodies? I would think this would affect the entire earth, not just the outer part of the earth(you can not shield gravitation. )

You can say that tidal friction causes this, but wouldn't the same gravity of the moon create tides in the flowing lava?

Re:It is not so simple.

[CoderBob]

It is gravitation that tends to cause the spin to slow down. The moon is locked into a 1:1 ratio of rotation:revolution, so it always presents the same "side" to the earth (no, not the "dark side of the moon v. light side of the moon bit. Even when the moon is a waning crescent, it is presenting the same surface features towards the Earth).

What will be interesting for Earth is to see which of the two largest bodies in terms of gravitation wins out, or if there will always be some form of resonance. Will we always present the same portion of Earth to the sun, so that one side of the planet bakes while the other freezes (which I believe is where Mercury is headed. Try going here: http://www.mira.org/fts0/planets/092/text/txt001x. htm for a description of Mercury's rotational period), or will we always present the same surface to the moon while we orbit the sun?

Re:It is not so simple.

[CheshireCatCO]

The Moon's tides are about twice as strong as the Sun's. (Which is why spring and neap tides occur in the first place.) It's a bit surprising that they're that close, but the Moon's proximity almost balances the Sun's killer mass. (And recall that tidal forces fall off like 1/r^3, so distance is more important here than for gravitational force where the Sun kicks the Moon's non-existent ass.)

What this means is that in around 45 billion years Earth will have a spin period of around 47 days and will be locked in a 1:1 spin:orbit resonance with the Moon (just like Pluto and Charon are now). Then something very cool happens: the Moon starts approaching Earth again and the Earth's spin continues to slow as it tries to match period with the Earth's orbital period.

Of course, we'll probably be long gone by then, what the Sun's red giant stage and all. But still, pretty cool.

(For more on these and other fascinating topics in solary system dynamics, check out Murray and Dermott's book.)

New York Times? Why??????????

[Anonymous Coward]

How about New Scirntist's coverage? Or LiveScience.com?

No bugmenot required, and they're science sites.

Slashdot gets more retarded every day, I swear.

(this post's mind-reading captcha="resorts")

Mars magnetic field's hiding?

[aussie_a]

I wonder what the rotation rate of Mars' core is. We know it's either liquid or solid and liquid (the latter being what Earth has), so it could have a difference, which would create a magnetic field. Only problem is, Mars doesn't have a magnetic field. However, Mars' field might also be hiding, as it does on Earth when changing the north and south poles which can take hundred to thousands of years. Now we've only been watching Mars with any sophistication for decades, which means Mars could have a field that's currently undergoing a reversal. If it isn't undergoing a reversal, and the two rotations are different, then it would prove enlightening on why that is the case.

It also bounces.

[kulakovich]

The Earth's core also bounces from North to South. Not sure if it is a remnant of the colision that formed the Moon, or part of its conservation of momentum from the outer crust trying to change it's vector, the core being a giant defacto gyroscope.

Eventually I will post the math. =)

kulakovich

Re:one BILLION amps

[SheeEttin]

If you get an antenna big enough (e.g. 200 ft), you will find that there is quite a lot of energy flowing through it, and if you want to use it for anything, you'll have to ground it.

1996

[Black Parrot]

Great to see the timely Slashdot article. I need a reminder about these things every nine years or so.

Superman's fault

[Himring]

It's Superman's fault. All cuz that bitch, Lois Lane, went and died, so he flew real fast and sped up the crust, then switched it back, but now the inside is still all fucked up....

Reversal happens like a dynamo with a loose rotor

[crovira]

There's a threshold where the fields around the rotor get disorganized (expect geomagnetic migrations to get all screwed up,) and then field lines reverse as the threshold is crossed.

Nothing actually happens to the rotor (it doesn't spin backwards all of a sudden) but the field lines generated are inverted.

Re:Revolutions

[beefstu01]

This just in: the center of a 12" record travels at a greater number of RPMs than the outer edge. Reactions from the Doobie Brothers were not reported

Uh... no. The tangential velocity at the edge is much greater than the tangential velocity in the center. Both points have the exact same angular velocity, otherwise the record would break into many pieces. Silly boy, don't you remember Physics I?

Re:first post

[Timberwolf0122]

Close but wrong, the earth rotation is being slowed down by the moon or rather it is being slowed down by the Earth speeding up the moons orbit (hence the reason it get about a meter further away each year).

Science part: The earth is not perfectly round and is slightly pulled out where the moon is, now because the earth is rotating faster than the moon is orbiting this buldge is actualy occures slightly infront of the moon, the result is the moon gets pulled. This effect slows earth rotation and speeds up the moons orbit.

this just in

[subtropolis]

slashdot poster jumps to moronic conclusion. Many in the community believe it may have something to do with smoking too many doobies whilst spinning platters.

Tidal Drag

[TrekkieGod]

The effect of gravity of the moon (and really all other objects in the solar system, to a smaller scale) on the earth as they rotate. Tidal dragging is the reason why the moon has locked its rotation with the earth (so that it always faces us).

Re:Tidal Drag

[WeeLad]

Always facing us? I always thought it was always facing AWAY from us. Hence the name "moon" which I believe is latin for "to show the backside".

Another obvious cause

[gr8_phk]

Every time a heavy chunk of crust breaks free and sinks into the liquid, it's like the skater pulling their arms in - it spins faster. Momentum is conserved, but at the shorter radius this translates into higher angular velocity. All the heavy stuff is in the center, and it must have spun up when that first happened. Is the difference still there, or is the process still happening a little bit?

Re:extinctions

[vertinox]

"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."

Homo erectus didn't have a society totally dependant on electronics for it's economics and machines to feed it's population. Of course we'll survive a reversal, but it won't be pleasant for those involved.

Stop

[JustOK]

Stop the world, I want to get off.

What if

[diztort]

...there is no core what so ever? I mean, why didn't nobody think about that the crust we live on is just some excretion material of the exit from a blackhole? The other end of the tube so we live on the crap of some swallowed up planets and other materials. :)

Re:Are we due for a reversal of the poles?

[dwhipp3980]

What you heard on Discovery is correct. It has been postulated that the flow of the fluid outer core, and subsequent motion of ions within that fluid is responsible for the generation of Earth's magnetic field and geomagnetic poles. It has also been shown that the polarity of the dominantly dipolar magnetic field reverses, seemingly randomly through Earth's history. I'm not sure of the statistics you mention, but if in fact the average pole reversal period is shorter than the time during which the current polarity has been maintained, you should also consider the standard deviation of the reversals, which is huge. For example, during the Cretaceous geologic time period, there was a long period of normal (or similar to today) polarity known as the Cretaceous long normal. Geologic records show no reversals over this 43 million year time period.

There is a God

[Urusai]

Some people doubt the existence of God, but I propose a doctrine of Intelligent Deogenesis. By postulating the existence of a creator who created God, we can account for the Intelligent Design in the characteristics of God Himself. Clearly, a being of God's infinite intelligence is the product of a being of intelligence. Theories that God evolved from monkeys or one-celled organisms fail the BS test, since God is clearly irreducible in his complexity. God simply sprang fully-formed from the mind of Man. Cogito ergo sum, lorem ipso dolor, quid pro quo, alea jacta est, et cetera.

Re:File under Wild Speculation

[WeeLad]

I long for the day when all scientific observations can be explained in relation to pimped out spinners.
Well done.

Yes, insightful

[freeweed]

As another poster pointed out, sarcasm is often insightful.

What Smidge has pointed out (quite nicely, I must say) is that pretty much EVERY scientific theory/explanation can be trivialized in this matter. Let's face it, here's what ID boils down to:

1. The world, and everything in it, are complex. No one would argue this.

2. In trying to understand complex things, we might miss some details, or in fact most of the detail. Again, no one would argue this.

3. Because we can't claim a perfect, 110% understanding of something, there's simply no way we can ever understand any of it. Logical fallacy. However, because of this:

4. Therefore everything was created by God. Everything is the way it is because of God. Otherwise how could things be this way?

Oh, and

5. My theory's as good as yours, because I say so, and yours is quite frankly far to complicated to understand whereas mine is simple and therefore correct.

#3 is WHY ID is not 100% laughed at by people, and #5 is why it's accepted so widely.

Re:extinctions

[fijimf]

Homo erectus didn't have a society totally dependant on electronics for it's economics and machines to feed it's population.

As far as you know . . .

Fair and Balanced

[ndansmith]

Fox News has posted a conflicting report declaring the Earth's core a "No Spin Zone."

b'day

[adnausium]

so now...what age do i put on earth's birthday card?

Re:extinctions

[vertinox]

I'm not sure about the parent or grandparent, but its not the field that I am concerned about, but the Cosmic Rays that the Earth's magnetic field may sheild us from.

If you aren't familiar with Cosmic Rays:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cosmic_rays

And IBM even has done reasearch on what Cosmic Rays does to electronics:

http://www.research.ibm.com/journal/rd40-1.html

http://www.research.ibm.com/journal/rd/421/ziegler .html

Think of it like an EMP bomb. The flip wouldn't give us enough radiation from cosmic rays to maybe kill us, but it's speculated that while its in limbo it would be enough to flip electrons in memory and kill sensitive electronic equipment.