‘It’s very exciting’: Scientists discover another layer in Earth’s core
It’s time to rewrite science textbooks.
In a study, scientists claim to have discovered another layer in the Earth’s core.
For many years, it has been widely believed that the Earth has four layers: the crust, the mantle, the outer core, and the inner core. A group of scientists now claims to have confirmed the existence of Earth’s “innermost inner core.”
Geophysicist and study lead author Joanne Stephenson said her team used an advanced algorithm to match current data to determine how long certain seismic waves took to travel through the Earth’s layers.
According to Stephenson, the potential existence of another layer to the core may indicate a remarkable event in Earth’s history.
“We found evidence that may indicate a change in the structure of iron, which suggests perhaps two separate cooling events in Earth’s history,” Stephenson said in a statement. “The details of this big event are still a bit of a mystery, but we’ve added another piece of the puzzle when it comes to our knowledge of the Earth’s inner core.”
While the hypothesis surrounding an additional layer to Earth’s core is nothing new, the method by which Stephenson and her team used to come to their findings is unique.
“We got around this by using a very clever search algorithm to trawl through thousands of the models of the inner core,” she said.
Stephenson also added that further study of the Earth’s inner core can help scientists gain a better grasp on Earth’s history.
