The inner core of the Earth or the nucleus, which is a solid iron ball larger than Pluto, could be younger than previously thought.
This is the conclusion of a study published Monday, suggesting that 565 million years ago it had not yet begun its consolidation.
Since its existence was discovered, back in 1936, the age of the inner core of the Earth has been the subject of many speculations and studies among the scientific community.
The challenge is to be able to tell when the solid iron first appeared in the inner core of the Earth, a process by which liquid iron began to solidify as a result of a very high pressure that would have occurred between 1-2 billion for years.
A new study, published by the Nature Geoscience journal, brings paleomagnetic evidence that the Earth’s magnetic field was at its lowest intensity 565 million years ago. This means that its inner core has not started to solidify completely during this period. These records were discovered by a team of researchers at Rochester University in New York, headed by Richard Bono and John Tarduno.
Experts measured the intensity and direction of the magnetic field in crystals of plagioclase and clinopiroxen that were formed 565 million years ago in the region of eastern Canadian province of Quebec. The very low intensity of the magnetic field they discovered was unprecedented and it was ten times less than the current force.
In an article published with the study, Peter Driscoll, an expert at the Washington Carnegie Institute of Science, admits that the “freezing” of the inner core could have intervened at the right time to load the geodynamic and save the Earth’s magnetic shield.
