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Earth science

A sheet-metal geodynamo

Nature volume 454, pages 1058–1059 (2008)Cite this article

A decade of modelling Earth's core on computers has led to the belief that we understand what produces Earth's magnetic field. More realistic simulations are now shaking that complacency.

Earth's magnetic field is often depicted as though a gigantic bar magnet resides inside our planet. In fact, the magnetic field is created by strong electrical currents generated by a dynamo process resulting from the flow of molten iron in Earth's outer core. An important feature of this motion is thought to be spiralling flows in the form of long columns running parallel to Earth's axis. Despite numerous simplifying assumptions, previous computer simulations of Earth's core have reproduced both this kind of flow and the properties of the magnetic field remarkably well. On page 1106 of this issue, Kageyama et al.1 present a simulation that should more closely model the conditions in Earth's core. Instead of columns, the model shows thin sheets, which undermines our present thoughts on exactly how the geodynamo works.

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Figure 1: Alternative geodynamos.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Ulrich R. Christensen is at the Max Planck Institute for Solar System Research, Max-Planck Strasse 2, 37191 Katlenburg-Lindau, Germany. christensen@mps.mpg.de ,

    Ulrich R. Christensen

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  1. Ulrich R. Christensen
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Christensen, U. A sheet-metal geodynamo. Nature 454, 1058–1059 (2008). https://doi.org/10.1038/4541058a

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