What Goes On Underneath Your Feet? Virtual Trip Inside The Earth
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It is generally assumed that heat from Earth’s core and mantle, due to the low thermal conductivity of the latter, is transferred to the outer part mainly by convection. This implies swirling movement of an immense amount of hot material, which is behind the dynamics of Earth’s interior. Understanding the details of this is of great interest since it can explain natural phenomena such as earthquakes, volcanoes, movements of tectonic plates and formation of mountains. A team from the University of Paris and the European Synchrotron Radiation Facility (ESRF) have found out that iron-bearing magnesium silicate perovskite, the Earth’s most abundant mineral, transforms, when pressure is applied, to a state where radiation could play a far more important role in heat transfer in the lowermost part of the mantle. This would
change our vision of the dynamics of the deep Earth and would suggest that the material at these depths is more static than currently thought.
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