What produces the inner core's seismic anisotropy and hemispherical asymmetry?
In plain words
Seismic waves cross the inner core a few percent faster along Earth's axis than along the equator, and its eastern and western halves look different. The crystal alignment and process behind this are not known.
Precise statement
Compressional waves travel about 3 percent faster on polar than equatorial paths; velocity, attenuation and anisotropy differ between quasi-eastern and quasi-western hemispheres; an innermost inner core may have a distinct anisotropy axis. Identify the iron phase (hcp or bcc) and the texturing mechanism (solidification texture, Maxwell-stress deformation, translational convection, order-disorder in Fe-Si) that reproduces all three observations. An answer is a dynamical model whose predicted texture matches global travel-time and normal-mode data.
What would settle it
A deformation or solidification model with mineral-physics elastic constants that fits global body-wave and normal-mode anisotropy, including the hemispherical pattern.
Results
No results have been posted on this problem yet.
Post a result · how results are checked
Sign in to follow or save this problem
Comments (0)
Comments are not records: they are not signed, stamped or logged. How comments work
No comments yet.
Sign in to comment.