Geodynamic estimates of the viscosity of the Earth's inner core

Bruce A. Buffett ()
Additional contact information
Bruce A. Buffett: University of British Columbia

Nature, 1997, vol. 388, issue 6642, 571-573

Abstract: Abstract Recent seismological studies1,2 have suggested that the inner core is rotating relative to the bulk of the Earth, a situation which (according to numerical simulations3) may be sustained by convective flow in the liquid outer core. On the other hand, large gravitational forces due to the heterogeneous distribution of mass in the Earth's mantle should be sufficient to keep the inner core aligned with the mantle4. Here I show that the differential rotation of the inner core can be reconciled with these strong gravitational forces by allowing the shape of the inner core to adjust as it rotates, so permitting an estimate of the effective viscosity of this innermost region of the Earth. The inferred rotation rate constrains the viscosity of the inner core to be less than 1016 Pa s or greater than 1020 Pa s, as two different dynamical regimes are possible. The viscosity estimates for these two regimes have very different implications for the origin of seismic anisotropy in the inner core.

Date: 1997
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.nature.com/articles/41534 Abstract (text/html)
Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:nat:nature:v:388:y:1997:i:6642:d:10.1038_41534

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
https://www.nature.com/

DOI: 10.1038/41534

Access Statistics for this article

Nature is currently edited by Magdalena Skipper

More articles in Nature from Nature
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().