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News and Views
Nature 413, 27-30 (6 September 2001) | doi:10.1038/35092650
Earth science: Core beliefs
Andrew Jephcoat1,2 & Keith Refson1,3
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Abstract
Working out what happens in the extreme conditions at the centre of the Earth is not easy. A calculation of the properties of iron under such conditions helps to explain seismic observations of the inner core.
In the beginning, shortly after the Earth was formed, there was no inner core. This has since grown to a region of dense, nearly pure solid iron, some 2,440 km across.
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