Hemispherical anisotropic patterns of the Earth's inner core

• It has been shown that the Earth's inner core has an axisymmetric anisotropic structure with seismic waves traveling similar to 3% faster along polar paths than along equatorial directions. Hemispherical anisotropic patterns of the solid Earth's core are rather complex, and the commonly used hexagonal-close-packed iron phase might be insufficient to account for seismological observations. We show that the data we collected are in good agreement with the presence of two anisotropically specular east and west core hemispheres. The detected travel-time anomalies can only be disclosed by a lattice-preferred orientation of a body-centered-cubic iron aggregate, having a fraction of their [111] crystal axes parallel to the Earth's rotation axis. This is compelling evidence for the presence of a body-centered-cubic Fe phase at the top of the Earth's inner core.

Ämnesord

NATURVETENSKAP  -- Geovetenskap och miljövetenskap -- Geofysik (hsv//swe)

NATURAL SCIENCES  -- Earth and Related Environmental Sciences -- Geophysics (hsv//eng)

NATURVETENSKAP  -- Fysik (hsv//swe)

NATURAL SCIENCES  -- Physical Sciences (hsv//eng)

Nyckelord

elastic anisotropy

Fe-bcc/-hcp

PKiKP/PKIKP waves

molecular dynamics

Geophysics

Geofysik

Physics

TECHNOLOGY

Publikations- och innehållstyp

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