Title: Corrugations on the core boundary interfaces due to constitutional supercooling and effects on motion in a predominantly stratified liquid core
Abstract: With the notion that interface and boundary layer phenomena play an important part in those geophysical processes which, by observation appear to be related to the earth's internal boundaries between the solid and liquid phases of its core and mantle, constitutional supercooling suggests itself as a mechanism capable of generating and maintaining inhomogeneities in concentration and density at the boundaries of the liquid core. The mechanism of constitutional supercooling requires a slow overgrowth of mantle and core, and, it implies that this growth process is associated with a selective partitioning of certain impurities shared in different concentrations by the liquid core and the solid phases of mantle and inner core. It can lead to the formation of regular (quasi-periodic) corrugations of the core-mantle and the inner-outer core boundaries with amplitudes of the order of 1 km. Mass redistributions, off-setting continually regenerated concentration and density inhomogeneities, provide a mechanism for core motion in the form of concentration currents. A regular distribution of corrugations or humps may give rise to (zonal) patterns of closed loops of concentration currents either in layers adjacent to the solid-liquid interfaces, or in loops extending through the entire outer core. The development of regular flow patterns should be enhanced if, referable to one particular constituent of the liquid phase, some parts of the solid-liquid interfaces acted as sources, others as sinks.
Publication Year: 1974
Publication Date: 1974-01-01
Language: en
Type: article
Indexed In: ['crossref']
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Cited By Count: 6
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