The Electric Earth

[sol88]

Question:

If the Earth's core is Fe and the Earth intercepts power via the Auroral circuit, should not earth be a kinda induction motor?

As well as explaining the molten iron core i.e. it's hot thru induction?

Just A thought

[jjohnson]

But it's an interesting thought...

You might elaborate a little bit on this as follows. Induction coils are an everyday industrial phenomenon, used to heat metal parts like bars and rods for a variety of useful purposes. A high amperage current is fed through a copper winding, inside of which the part to be heated is placed. Through induction, the part is heated to the requisite temperature (cherry red to yellow in several seconds), withdrawn, the current to the induction coil is turned off, and the process continued elsewhere.

Draw an analogy as to what part of the Earth is the induction "coil", describe the incident current (amps and voltage realized, for example, plus ohmic resistance in the conducting Earth. Simply having current flow into and out of a large sphere of iron might not be productive. See if you can predict amount of heating. Does this work with our DC current supply, or is the factory process (most likely) AC? Does it jibe with a model of the Earth and its (assumed or posited) temperature gradients?

The deep interior of the Earth, not unlike that of the Sun and any other place outside our solar system, is inaccessible to direct measurement, so a lot of inferences have been made about "what's there". Perhaps this is a good model to follow up on, and to check against evidence and observations, via seismic wave speeds and wavelengths, thermal energy balance data of the Earth, current flows into the Earth via lightning, auroras, etc.

That would be pretty interesting, whether or not you get a positive result - i.e., a model that correlates well with reality. That is the present problem with the consesnsus' s Gravity Model of the universe. It is having difficulties conforming to the realities uncovered by high-quality, broadband research into cosmic phenomena. New models are the life blood of science! — and they are nearly always temporary until the next better one comes along.

Jim

[popster1]

I am happy to see this thread, as it ties in with something I have been thinking about lately. After reading about the drift of the magnetic poles, I have been considering the origin of Earth's magnetic field. Is it not more likely that the field is created by an external current flow rather than generated by a spinning molten iron mass? If I recall correctly, molten iron is not magnetic.

[sol88]

http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/image/0211/fi ... tz_big.gif

something like this?

I mean we know that we receive electrical energy from the Sun, but...it still does nufin!

How is our core still molten again?

how would you tackle or indeed find the numbers needed to plug into Ampère's circuital law??

[The Great Dog]

Earth's core may not be molten anything. It's just as likely that it's plasma surrounded by successive double layer envelopes.

[Maddogkull]

Aren't there studies that almost show that the core is iron?? Are there any studies to show that the core is of a plasma nature?

[seasmith]

via GC

Goce satellite views Earth's gravity in high definition

In the North Atlantic, around Iceland, the level sits about 80m above the surface of the ellipsoid; in the Indian Ocean it sits about 100m below.

The spacecraft carries three pairs of precision-built platinum blocks inside its gradiometer instrument that sense accelerations which are as small as 1 part in 10,000,000,000,000 of the gravity experienced on Earth.

An ion generator squid, riding the carrier wave of telluric currents ?

The GOCE view works maybe if whatever gravity fields,
as 'measured' by effects of acceleration ,
are simply some primary telharmonic chord, of electric wave profiles and shapes.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/8767763.stm
s

[redeye]

Aren't there studies that almost show that the core is iron?? Are there any studies to show that the core is of a plasma nature?

There aren't any studies showing the Earth's core is made of anything. When seismic studies are made of the Earth's structure the acoustic waves do not pass through the inner core. Scientists heve extrapolated from this, and the planets magnetic field, that the outer core is fluid with an iron inner core that is rotating at a different speed therefore generating an electric current and producing the Earth's magnetic field.

Dynamo Theory

There are some problems with this. The shape of Earth's magnetic field (magnetosphere) suggests a toroidal electric current which doesn't fit well to an electric current created by a rotating iron sphere. The shape and orientation of the magnetosphere with respect to the sun and the heliospheric current sheet (Solar Wind) also suggests that it is an interference pattern formed by an obstruction in a fluid medium which suggests (to me anyway) that the magnetosphere is an artifact of an interaction between the Earth and the Heliospheric current sheet. Also, Occam's razor states that the simplest answer is most likely to be correct, by this rationale the reason acoustic waves do not pass through the centre of the Earth is because there is nothing there.

There is no physical evidence to state that the core of the Earth is plasma but, personally speaking, it's seems like an interesting avenue for investigation and a number of forum members have developed ideas in this direction.

Doesn't hurt to speculate...unless you're a banker. Bad bankers!!!


Cheers!

[mharratsc]

It was my understanding that the only reason it was proposed that the core was iron was because of the permanent magnetic field in the first place.

Flip perspectives for a moment- look at the formation of spheroids from z-pinch phenomena- there could be *anything* inside the Earth. Look at the amazing range of things we find inside smaller geodes around the planet. Crystals of various forms, empy air, water, even petroleum have been found inside geodes! That crystal cave down in Central America is actually a giant geode, with those ginormous gypsum(?) crystals the size of small buildings!

What if the Earth was in fact filled with nothing but petroleum? THAT would be extremely amusing to me for its repercussions to the greedy of the world...

[Lloyd]

Redeye said: ... by this rationale the reason acoustic waves do not pass through the centre of the Earth is because there is nothing there.

* By "nothing" I suppose you mean nothing solid or liquid is there to transfer the sound waves. I guess both a gas and a plasma do transfer sound waves too, but I suppose the waves would be greatly weakened and thus not detectable. [Obviously, air carries sound waves and, since air around thunderstorms etc is partly ionized, which is plasma, plasma must carry them as well.]
* So, Mike, it may be more likely that there's gas or ionized gas = plasma at the center of the Earth. I guess solids and liquids can be ionized as well, but maybe they would transfer sound waves just like regular solids and liquids. Or am I wrong?
* Anyway, maybe think about gas plasma or methane or the like at the center, instead of liquid petroleum. Eh?
* Well, here's a relevant article, or the abstract for it.
Acoustic wave interaction with plasma
http://iopscience.iop.org/0022-3727/11/ ... 5A71136.c3

Experiments have been conducted to find the variation of the velocity of an acoustic wave propagating through air plasma. It is found that the velocity of sound increases with increasing charged particle density in the plasma. Also it has been observed that as the frequency of the acoustic wave through the plasma increases, the perturbed variation in charged particle density and the electron-neutral atom elastic collision frequency remain constant as long as the frequency of the sound wave is less than the ionisation frequency of the plasma. For further increase in the wave frequency, equal to, or greater than, the ionisation frequency of the plasma, the change in the number density reduces to a minimum value while the elastic collision frequency of the plasma increases.

* Now what does ionization frequency mean? Apparently it means "the average number of ionizing collisions per second suffered by one electron ..." etc.

[allynh]

Aren't there studies that almost show that the core is iron?? Are there any studies to show that the core is of a plasma nature?

Check out this site for one description of the core.

Hollow Planet Seismology Vs Solid Earth Seismology
http://www.hollowplanets.com/journal/Seismic01.asp

[Lloyd]

* Interesting, Allyn. Here's an excerpt.

In the above model [better one below], I simply used the Earth's structure as scientists define it now. I replaced the Outer core with a cavity (I'll explain why later - because there is a sound reason for it). But the thing I changed was the structure of the Mantle. I wondered what would happen if density within a sphere did not increase uniformly as has been assumed. What if density actually DECREASES from a certain point onwards? You will notice all solid-earth seismology shows ray paths curving in a "U" back to the surface of the Earth. That is because density and pressure increases as you go deeper. But if, for some reason, density were to suddenly decrease, then the waves would curve in the opposite direction! I realised this, and you can see what then happens. In the middle of the Mantle, where density suddenly decreases, it causes seismic waves to travel around the cavity - right to the other side of the Earth!

* Well, that seems to make good sense, that the density may decrease toward the hollow center, and then the wave paths then curve the opposite way. He goes on to mention the shadow zone etc. Oh, and he suggests that the Earth's interior is homogenous! Thornhill has stated some time ago that the Sun is homogenous too.

[Lloyd]

* The following section is rather relevant to an electric earth model.

Lesson #7: Deep Quakes may disprove the Solid Earth model. According to scientists, pressure increases with depth. According to their calculations the pressure is so great that between 70-150 Km down, all rock will begin to flow. Below 150 Km there is no known material which will not flow. Therefore, according to scientists, there can be no earthquakes with epicentres deeper than 150 Km - because it is IMPOSSIBLE!

But there are! Tens of thousands of Earthquakes have epicentres deeper than 150 Km. The histogram below [see site from Allyn's post above] shows some curious things. It shows that earthquakes occur right up to a depth of 300 Km down. The picture is somewhat consistent with science's expectations because there are less quakes with depth (though they do not stop at 150 Km as expected). Then a most curious thing happens, they increase in number up to a depth of 700 Km where they end. Scientists try to explain these quakes by invoking various possible strange properties of matter. Although each theory advanced so far has had problems with it.

What no scientist on Earth is willing to accept is that maybe gravity does not behave the way they believe it does! That histogram may be the proof that gravity does not behave as is expected at depth. Why can't scientists look at that histogram and see it for what it might be telling us? That histogram may be "stating" quite clearly that the Earth does not have those pressures inside and that it remains relatively cool down to incredible depths? Maybe that diagram is "telling us" that gravity does not behave at depths the way we are expecting. If that is so, then everything we think we know about the mass of the Earth may be wrong.

Note, gravity is a very weak force and even a bit of static electricity could produce an attraction far in excess of anything gravity could produce - but with a fraction of the mass. If that is the case, you don't need to worry about the Earth having to have a mass of 6 trillion tons [That should say 6,588,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 tons, or about 6.6 sextillion tons, or 6.6 x 10^24 tons]. It may weigh considerably less.

As final note, it may be that there are quakes deeper than 700 Km but they are so far away, and maybe the effects of gravity are so weak that they do not have enough force for us to detect them. Let me point out that seismologists have indeed speculated about the possible existence of "Silent Earthquakes" which ... remain undetected by our equipment.

[Osmosis]

I assume these seismologists are speculating that "dark matter' may cause "silent earthquakes".

[redeye]

Mark Boslough created a model for measuring how seismic waves are transferred through the interior of the Earth

Shock Dynamics

Computer models can only be as accurate as the initial assumptions they are based on and the link doesn't have a very good representation of the model but it does show the way these waves are focused on a point antipodal to the initial impact. When I see models like this they always seem to miss the fact that the Earth is slightly oblate which would have an effect on how the seismic waves are transmitted.

Cheers!