Earth’s inner solid core rotation may have slowed, study suggests

26 January 2023 , 06:39

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A new study suggests that the inner core may have slowed its rotating (Image: Edward sotelo/USC)

Earth’s inner core may have slowed its rotating and could have started to move more slowly than the mantle, according to a new study.

Seismic waves from earthquakes that have moved through the inner core of the Earth over the past 60 years have been examined by scientists to see how fast it is spinning.

And the surprising outcome appears to show that while there were previous differences in the seismic records, since 2009 they have remained roughly the same.

Yi Yang and Xiaodong Song of China’s Peking University, authors of the study have come to the conclusion that the inner core has slowed its movement.

"We believe the inner core rotates, relative to the Earth's surface, back and forth, like a swing. One cycle of the swing is about seven decades," they said in the study.

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The latest study believes that the rotation may have slowed (Getty Images)

In the research published in the journal Nature Geoscience, Song added: “When you look at the decade between 1980 and 1990 you see clear change but when you see 2010 to 2020 you don’t see much change.”

The Earth is made up of the crust, mantle and the inner and outer cores with the latter around 3,200 miles below the Earth’s surface. It is separated from the mantle by a liquid outer core which allows for the rotation of the inner core.

The results suggests that the Earth could go in 60 or 70 year periods of movement which might help to shed light on climatic and geographical systems that also work on timeframes and affect life on the surface of the planet.

The different layers of the Earth (Getty Images/iStockphoto)

But the varying of the speed of the inner core and the possibility that is has slowed has been debated by other scientists and there is a difference of opinion.

Hrvoje Tkalcicc, a geophysicist from the Australian National University doesn’t believe that the inner core stops moving.

“The inner core doesn’t come to a full stop,” he said, reported CNN. "(The study’s finding) means that the inner core is now more in sync with the rest of the planet than a decade ago when it was spinning a bit faster.”

Adding: “Nothing cataclysmic is happening."

Tim Hanlon