Fine-scale heterogeneity in the Earth's inner core

John E. Vidale () and Paul S. Earle
Additional contact information
John E. Vidale: Earth and Space Science Department
Paul S. Earle: Earth and Space Science Department

Nature, 2000, vol. 404, issue 6775, 273-275

Abstract: Abstract The seismological properties of the Earth's inner core have become of particular interest as we understand more about its composition and thermal state1,2. Observations of anisotropy and velocity heterogeneity in the inner core are beginning to reveal how it has grown and whether it convects3,4. The attenuation of seismic waves in the inner core is strong, and studies of seismic body waves5,6 have found that this high attenuation is consistent with either scattering or intrinsic attenuation5. The outermost portion of the inner core has been inferred to possess layering and to be less anisotropic than at greater depths7,8,9,10. Here we present observations of seismic waves scattered in the inner core which follow the expected arrival time of the body-wave reflection from the inner-core boundary. The amplitude of these scattered waves can be explained by stiffness variations of 1.2% with a scale length of 2 kilometres across the outermost 300 km of the inner core. These variations might be caused by variations in composition, by pods of partial melt in a mostly solid matrix or by variations in the orientation or strength of seismic anisotropy.

Date: 2000
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.nature.com/articles/35005059 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:404:y:2000:i:6775:d:10.1038_35005059

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

DOI: 10.1038/35005059

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 ().