Physics Program Presents

Journey to the Center of the Earth

Earth’s solid iron alloy inner core was not discovered until 1936, a year after Pluto’s discovery. Its remoteness made it difficult to observe, and its temperature (over 6000 K) and pressure (3 million times atmospheric pressure) made it difficult to study its physical properties. This began to change in the 1980’s, with advances in seismology and mineral physics revealing surprising and difficult to explain properties.

The talk will begin with a review of basic deep Earth structure, its material properties, and the geomagnetic field, which is generated in the liquid iron alloy outer core. Then we will discuss some of the unusual properties of the inner core, and possible dynamical causes, which give hints about Earth’s evolution. We conclude with some recent work on ultrasonic scattering which tries to understand anomalously high inner core seismic attenuation.

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For more information, call 845-758-6822, or e-mail [email protected].

Time: 12:00 pm EST/GMT-5

Location: Hegeman 107

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